Massive Gain
by Morgaur
Summary: The MEverse is at the very least a good place to find yourself. When you've just fallen off a cliff and your last memory is of plunging to certain death, it is a divine place to be, as Paul Alleyn discovers. Self-insert but in the third person, set two years before ME1. Uses 1054SS325MP's twin Shepards. Rated T for language, later violence.
1. Inbound

**Well, here we go again. Massive Gain's first repost, rewritten in the third person. With thanks to my two betas, 1054SS325MP and Narayu. You guys make it all possible. Readers, please be both of the two Rs and review! Reviews make it all worthwhile. More reviews, more reason for writing faster and better!**

**Enjoy.**

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_**Date unknown, location unknown**_

_Ouch._

Pounding pain lanced through Paul Alleyn's skull, searing his mind. He moaned involuntarily and the movement of his jaws, tiny as it was, caused another spasm of agony to hammer across his brain, thundering against the back of his eyes.

_Ouch!_

He waited for a few moments, letting the drumming peak and then slowly recede to a constant dull throb. The first coherent thought that came to his mind was, _ahhh...why do I hurt so bad? _The second was, _why am I alive?_ The thought surprised him. Slowly he dredged through his memories to find why he'd wondered that. He drew a blank. _Why am I lying down?_ he thought next, then, _hmm, floor's wet and hard. Am I lying on ice? _For a couple of moments he considered whether he really was lying on ice, before realising, _there aren't any ice sheets off the coast of Wales._

_Why Wales? _came next, and hard on it's heels, _try moving._

He moved his right index finger slowly and experimentally, with considerable trepidation. It moved - or at least, he thought it did. That was encouraging, so he moved another finger. It moved as well. With increasing speed and decreasing worry he moved the rest of his fingers, then his hand, then his left hand and fingers, then more of his body. Everything seemed to be in working order.

_Why don't I open my eyes? _he thought, and did so.

"Aaagh!"

Paul closed his eyes so fast that he feared, for a second, that his eyelids may have got whiplash. He clenched them shut, bringing the palms of his hands up to press against his eyes in an attempt to block out the pain arcing across his brain. Slowly the agony ebbed away, and he cracked his eyes cautiously open. Wincing as he adjusted to the bright light, he saw a jagged-edged slice of bright blue sky.

_Blue sky?! _he thought, confused - since when do you see blue skies in Wales? - and then realised why there was only a jagged slice of it and not a wide over-arcing vista. On either side of him rose irregular rows of rooftops.

He sat bolt upright and immediately groaned and slumped forwards, hands clutching his head as more tidal waves of pain slammed across it. With a gasp of air he pulled himself together and straightened up, staring round in shock and fright.

_Oh my god oh my god oh my god..._

Paul was sitting on the damp concrete ground of a narrow alleyway in what seemed to be, from the smell and general feel, to be a large city. Either side of him were tall buildings, office blocks maybe, or perhaps blocks of flats. Probably the latter, given the odd-looking bins lining the walls. Paul felt himself beginning to panic and closed his eyes, taking long, deep breaths until he felt marginally calmer. A memory flashed across his mind - walking down a trail running along the edge of a cliff. Grey sky overhead, mild winds. The smell of salt and the sea in the air. A solo hiking trip in Wales, rucksack on his back. A sudden gust of wind making him stagger, and then while unbalanced a dog suddenly slamming into the back of his legs, sending him staggering two steps towards the edge of the cliff. A foot slipped on a patch of grass and went over the edge, and then he was tumbling off, falling, falling down to the waves and hard rocks below...then black.

He opened his eyes, spread his arms and looked down at himself. He was still wearing the same clothes - black jeans, sturdy walking boots, a black waterproof windcheater over a black t-shirt/polo neck combo, a large red eye on the chest of the shirt with the legend 'Mordor and the Eye!' in calligraphic script beneath it. He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, an old and bulky iPhone 2. The date it showed, when he tapped it on, was still the same as it had been then - 5 June 2013.

Paul slowly pushed himself to his feet, wincing with pain - his back and rear end were stiff and felt bruised. Stowing the phone back in his pocket, he looked round again. His rucksack lay a few feet away, and he staggered over to it and picked it up, slinging one strap over his shoulder. He glanced at the road at one end of the alley and took a step towards it, then paused, pulling his phone out. He began tapping in a number, but stopped when he realised there was no service.

"Figures," he muttered, replacing the phone and heading for the road, intending to go to the nearest police station. He stepped out of the alleyway, glanced round, and froze. Not twenty feet away, standing under a tree by the side of a river that ran along the road, was someone who was obviously a tour guide, with a group of tall female figures...with blue skin, tentacled hair, and futuristic clothes.

Asari.

Paul's mind shut down.

...

"Are you alright?" a voice asked, and a hand slapped his cheek gently. "Hey. Are you alright?"

Paul opened his eyes, registering that he was on his back again. A face swam fuzzily into view, hovering over his own. It was a very attractive face, with delicate features, a pointed chin and high cheekbones, and large almond-shaped eyes. And blue skin, with the facial markings that all asari have forming a pair of crescents on her temples.

"Y-yeah," Paul stammered, more from the shock of seeing asari than anything else. "I'm fine, thanks."

The asari stood up and half-held out a hand, hesitated and then pulled it back as Paul started to raise his hand tentatively. He blinked but ignored it as he pushed himself up, frantically trying to control his pounding heartbeat.

"You sure?" she asked. "You just sort of fell down. Do you need to go to a hospital or something?"

"N-no," Paul replied, forcing himself to stay calm, "I'm fine, really. Just...uh, just blacked out, I suppose." He saw a sceptical look on her face and tried a reassuring smile. It came out more like a bad case of strychnine poisoning. "It...happens occasionally. I'm fine, trust me."

"Hmm," the asari said, still watching him, apparently unconvinced.

"Seriously," Paul said, starting to panic again. The asari's gaze was still on him, as if she knew something was off - his clothes probably weren't helping matters at all. He dampened his lips, desperately casting about for something to say.

"Well, if you're sure..." the asari said, the dubious look falling away. He nodded, trying for a smile again and managing to look like he was sucking on a lemon.

She looked as if she was going to say something but then thought better of it, gave him a short nod, and walked away.

Paul took a deep breath, turned and headed back into the alley, where he collapsed against a wall, clutching his knees to him and breathing as if he'd just done a hundred metre sprint.

_Oh god, _he thought, _oh god, oh god. I'm in the Mass Effect universe._ He closed his eyes and forced his breathing to regulate itself. Leaning his head back against the cold wall, he ran through the possibilities. Possibility one: he's insane or hallucinating. Very likely, but he'd heard that it doesn't occur to insane or hallucinating people to question what they think is real. Possibility two: he died and this is the afterlife. Not very likely, but maybe more credible than possibility three: he fell through some kinda wormhole thing and wound up sprawled on his back in the MEverse. He racked his brains to try and think of something that would reassure him that he wasn't hallucinating.

A thought struck him: he'd read somewhere - he wasn't sure, but he thought it was in T. 's The Once And Future King - that people cannot hallucinate smells, nor dream them.

Smells. Bins smelled. And there were plenty of bins lining the alley walls.

Paul pushed himself to his feet and stepped over to the nearest bin. With a quick glance at the road to make sure no-one was watching, he lifted the lid, stuck his head right over the rubbish, and inhaled deeply. The next second, he was on his hands and knees, coughing and gagging fit to burst from the stink that had shot up his nostrils and slammed into his brain like a hammer-shot.

"Well," he rasped finally, standing up and wiping his lips with the back of his hand, "no _way_ am I hallucinating _that_."

He mentally checked insanity/hallucination off the list. That left afterlife or wormhole travel. Somehow he didn't think the afterlife was the MEverse, so that left wormhole travel. Not too bad, all things considered. There were worse places to end up. Warhammer 40K, for example. He shuddered. That did _not_ bear thinking about. Picking his rucksack off the ground where he'd dropped it, he opened it quickly to make sure he still had everything. Two changes of underwear and socks; camera; camera charger; phone charger; ginger nuts; waterbottle; extra pair of jeans; extra shirt; two books - hardbacks from the early nineteen hundreds, _Paradise Lost _and _The Illiad_, his favourites; toiletry bag; first-aid kit. The first-aid kit reminded him that he still had a pounding headache, and he fished the case out. He removed a packet of aspirin and took two, replacing the case in the bag. Reaching into the front of his shirt he pulled out a leather pouch on a cord round his neck. Apparently, old coinage was very valuable in the MEverse, and he - fortunately - always carried around a 'lucky' 2nd century A.D. Roman denarius.

"Fat lot of luck you were," he muttered, fishing it out and glaring at it. He stuck the coin back in the pouch and dropped it back in his shirt, zipping the jacket up tightly.

As he walked out into the road again, he formulated a plan of action._ First, _he thought,_ find a public terminal, like in a library or something._ _Check the date and find where he was; then find the nearest antique store and sell most of my stuff. Then_ - he glanced down at himself - _get some 'normal' clothes, so I don't stick out so badly. Finally, find a hotel or something and try to come to terms with what's happened_.

He rounded a corner and stopped abruptly, as he saw across the river one of the most iconic and recognisable buildings in the world: the Houses of Parliament.

"London?"

**Tuesday 5 June 2181, a library somewhere in London**

Paul shifted his rucksack from one shoulder to the other, waiting for the terminal to complete it's search. It seemed that library terminals, just like library computers, were slow as all hell. He shifted it again and then put it on the floor with a mutter of annoyance. The terminal had been a full two minutes already, just searching for an antique store. Still, he'd managed to find out the date, at least - 5 June 2181. That supported his wormhole theory, he thought vaguely. How, he wasn't sure. There was just something slightly reassuring that it was the same date, even if the actual day of the week and the year were off. The day was just one day off; the year by 168 years. He shuddered. Trying to take his mind off it, he glanced at the pair of gloves dangling by steel cords from the terminal. They were, so he had been told by a rather confused librarian, omingloves. Apparently, the holographic interfaces of omintools and terminals required tiny implants in the fingers to use them barehanded. If you didn't have the implants, you used the gloves, which had the necessary chips - or whatever it was, Paul never really found out - in the fingertips. He thought they looked rather cool, like something out of Minority Report.

"Harko's Antiques," he read, when the display finally lit up. According to the terminal, it was the closest on-the-quiet antique store that wasn't run by a volus. He examined the directions carefully, noting them down on his iPhone. Paul chewed his lip thoughtfully, wondering whether to find a hotel now or later. _Better now, _he decided, and slipped the omnigloves back on, typing in a search term: cheapest hotel in London. He hit search and removed the gloves, leaning back in the chair with a sigh. Staring into space, he introspected a little. All things considered, he felt he'd borne up rather well. Of course, he realised with a sudden cynical thought, it helped that he had had no close family in the real world - _was_ it the real world anymore? - and was used to being alone. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father had handed him over to an uncle before drinking himself to death before Paul's sixth birthday. The uncle he'd been living with put him in an orphanage when that happened, and he ended up in a foster home at the age of twelve. By his seventeenth year, when he moved out, though he liked and respected his foster family, they weren't really close. Still, it hadn't harmed him; he'd grown up an intellectual, rather geekish bookworm who managed to somehow reconcile that with being fit - he ran ten miles a day, and fenced every other day.

A faint ding brought his mind back to the terminal. He noted down the name of the hotel - The Blue Lotus - reasoning that he could probably get a taxi or something to get there once he'd sold some stuff, before closing the terminal and standing up and leaving the library. As he went, he opened his Maps of Britain app, trying to see if he could match the route given with the map of London he had. If he was lucky, it wouldn't have changed much. He walked out of the door, not really looking where he was going, and suddenly felt himself collide hard with someone heading in the opposite direction, knocking whoever it was over.

"Oof," he grunted, staggering back. He looked down and realised, with horror, that he'd just cannoned into the asari he'd met earlier. "Ohmygod I'm so sorry," he stuttered, offering a hand to help her up. "I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm sorry, are you alright?"

The asari gave him an odd look as she pushed herself upright, ignoring his proffered hand. "I'm fine," she said, then her eyes narrowed and she asked sharply, "You! Are you following me?"

"W-what?" Paul said in surprise. "No! I - I just came out of the library - sorry..."

She stared at him suspiciously, before brushing past him and stalking into the library without another glance. Paul ran a hand down his face.

"That," he mumbled to himself, "was awkward."

He set off down the street, heading for the antique store.

Ten minutes later - and half as many wrong turns - he arrived. Glancing up at the dusty, drab exterior, he twisted his lips, wondering how badly he'd get ripped off. Deciding not to worry, he pushed open the door and walked inside.

"Hello, sir," a quiet voice said, and Paul glanced round to see a short, grey-haired man step out of an inner room behind the counter. The man's eyes widened slightly at the sight of Paul's clothes, but to his infinite relief didn't comment.

"Uh, hi," Paul said, walking over to the counter. "I, uh, have some things to sell." He opened his rucksack and pulled out the two books, mentally thanking whatever gods may be for his taste for old books. Who'd have thought they'd come in useful now?

As the man started looking over them, passing an odd device across the books' covers, he started taking out the camera as well, hesitated, then removed the SD card before putting the camera on the counter. _No point in letting him see the pictures on here_, he thought. He added the camera charger, and then reached in his shirt and pulled out the denarius, placing it on the marble surface with a loud clack. The older man, who'd been examining the camera with a faintly amused look on his face, glanced sharply at the coin. With a swift motion he seized it and, with a perfunctory, "Authenticity check," whisked it off to a machine in the corner. While his back was turned, Paul took the opportunity to remove anything with identification on it from his wallet before adding it to the small pile of things.

The man turned back from the machine with Paul's denarius in his hand.

"Well, sir," he said, a calculating look in his eyes, "this is certainly a valuable coin. Worth, I think, maybe a thousand credits?"

"Only a thousand?" Paul asked, disbelievingly. "A friend of mine, who knows these coins, said it's worth five thousand at least. Said the emperor on the coin, whatshisface, is rarely depicted on any coins from the Roman period." _Five thousand pounds,_ he amended mentally. _No knowing what that is now, but bluff and pretend you know what you're talking about._

"Your friend overvalues the coin. If in mint condition, then it certainly would be worth five thousand credits. But," the man replied smoothly, "as you can see, it is rather worn and a bit damaged. That decreases its value. Perhaps you would take two thousand credits?"

Paul hesitated, then said, "Three thousand."

The man's lips curled into a smile. "Two thousand five hundred," he offered.

"Done," Paul acquiesced, suspecting that while he hadn't got the coin's full value, he probably still had got a considerable amount. _Thank god for my poker face,_ he thought. "And this stuff?" he asked, indicating the rest of the things.

"The books, two hundred credits. They're pretty good forgeries, you know."

"What!?" Paul spluttered. "Forgeries? What - "

"Oh, yes," the man cut him off. "Forgeries. Old forgeries, maybe ninety years old or so, but certainly not from the nineteen hundreds. Carbon-14 doesn't lie."

"Well," Paul said slowly, mentally kicking himself. _Of course, there was no time passage, I just came here instantly. They're still as old as they were in my time._ "Uh, okay then. I never knew that."

"So, two hundred credits?" the man queried, raising an eyebrow. When Paul nodded, he carried on, picking the camera up. "This camera - where did you find it?" the man asked, looking questioningly at Paul.

"Uh, my great-grandfather buried a time capsule thingy, and I opened it last year. It was in there, but I only just got round to selling it."

"Sure," the man said, evidently not really believing him, but Paul didn't mind too much as long as he got something for it. "Two hundred fifty credits, and fifty for the wallet."

"Okay," Paul said, relieved at getting the things off his plate. The man entered the items in his terminal, asked Paul whether he wanted a chit or direct transfer, and handed him a three-thousand credit chit when he indicated the former.

Paul exited the shop with a relatively lighter rucksack and three thousand more credits in his name than when he started, and glanced round. _Find the hotel now,_ he thought, and tried to see if he could find a taxi or something. Failing to see anything, he accosted a passerby and asked where he could find the nearest taxi rank. On his way there, he noticed a large shop that was oddly familiar. In large white letters against a blue background, the sign over the door read, 'Debenhams'. _Excellent._

He went in and, after looking round and feeling lost, found the nearest assistant, a beaming creature of indeterminate sex and age. He noted the shoulder-length hair, perfect complexion, shining teeth and flat chest, and marked it down mentally as an androgynous it. The nametag - JOCELYN - didn't help matters either. _Who even has names like that any more?_

"Excuse me," he said, "but could you help me please?"

"Certainly!" it trilled, in a high-pitched voice that penetrated his ears painfully. "Retro fashion, I see. Would you like to see our range of retro styles?"

"Uh, no thanks," Paul replied quickly. "I'm, uh, bored with this look - I want to find something different but I'm not sure about what best to get...d'you think you could help me pick out something?"

"Of course, sir," Jocelyn answered brightly. "If you'll follow me to the fifth floor, where we have our latest men's fashions, I can get you fitted out in no time."

"Thanks," Paul said weakly. The assistant led him over to a large elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. It began to move, slowly, as music that sounded like glitter studded pink goo played sickeningly softly in the background. _Oh, god,_ Paul groaned mentally, as the assistant began humming along to the music. By the time they reached the fifth floor, he felt just about ready to scream. _Give me Garrus and Tali bickering any day,_ he thought. _This is just torture._

A rather painful half-hour later, he emerged from the shop with considerable relief, two new outfits, one of which he was wearing, four hundred credits poorer, and tinnitus. While Jocelyn, after reaching the fifth floor, had handed him on to another assistant, she - Alice, a definite female - had an even higher voice, and a more effusive personality than he had ever met with before. Still, he reflected, it was worth the pain not to stand out any more. In addition, she had given him directions to a charity shop where he could sell his unwanted clothes quite cheaply.

He stood on the pavement outside for a brief moment, before continuing off in search of a taxi rank.

_**Later, Tuesday 5 June 2181, The Blue Lotus**_

Paul sat on the bed in his room and looked around. It was a respectably sized room, not large but not small either, with a bed, chair and round table, armchair, TV screen on the wall, and terminal in one corner, complete with omnigloves hanging by a steel cord. On one wall was a door, standing open to reveal a small bathroom - lacking a bath, though. It only had a shower cubicle. Everything in the room was just this side of tatty and revolting, but was at least clean. Cost per night, one hundred credits, meals twenty-five to fifty credits each. Since he had two thousand five hundred credits, that amounted to about twelve days worth of room and board. He sighed. He needed a job - and he wanted to be able to be part of the Normandy's crew. _Would be a complete waste if I just was a spectator like everyone else,_ he mused. _Thing is, I'd only be on the Normandy's crew if I was a soldier, or a sailor...well, member of the navy, and then I'd have to be really good at what I do to get on. Or - _an interesting idea struck him -_ I could be a reporter, to provide coverage on humanity's first SPECTRE. But again, I'd have to be really good and be working for the right ... newspaper? Since ME1 is only two years away, give or take, that's no go, _he mused, chin resting on his hands. Another idea hit him, this one less agreeable than the last. _Reapers,_ he thought. _I know, but no-one else knows...forget spectating, I need to be on the Normandy. I need to be able to help Shepard..._ he smirked at a mental image of himself introducing himself to a generic Shepard: Hi, I'm Paul Alleyn. Sorry to have to break this to you, but you're a character in a computer game in my world. If you do exactly as I say, you get the chance to sacrifice yourself to save the galaxy from a race of self-perpetuating species-devouring robots. _Yeah, _he thought sardonically, _that'd really work._

He sighed and flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. _I'll think of something,_ he vowed, then yawned so hugely he hurt his jaws. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was only seven-thirty in the evening. He shook himself vigourously and pushed himself off the bed.

"Coffee," he muttered to himself, and left the room in search of some. Five minutes later he returned, holding a large disposable cup of the strongest coffee he could get. Sitting down at the terminal, he took a large draft of it and set it down on the floor beside him. Slipping his hands into the omnigloves, he turned the terminal on, silently offering up a prayer that it would not be as slow as the library one he'd used earlier. Sighing with relief when it proved to be far faster, he began typing in 'careers', then paused. _What if Shepard doesn't exist?_ With a sudden thrill of anxiety, he typed in the name 'Shepard' into the terminal and began his research. He quickly found that he had to be a bit more precise than just 'Shepard', since there were about a million or so different hits. Paul paused for a moment, wondering what Shepard's first name was. In-game you chose your own, he knew, so there was no knowing what it would be. He decided to try the default name - 'John Shepard' - when close on fifty thousand entries came up he further refined the search to 'John Shepard Alliance Military', which came up with five thousand hits, groaned, tried 'Jane Shepard Alliance Military', came up with two thousand hits. He stopped, stumped. For a couple of minutes he sat and thought, then typed in 'Shepard N7'.

The coffee, forgotten on the floor, slowly went cold.

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**Apparently you can check carbon-14 levels with a handheld device in the MEverse.**

**Sana will be making her appearance proper next chapter - but it will be different from before and better (fingers crossed).**

**I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! With luck, the next repost should be in a week's time, depending on how fast I can rewrite it. Of course, reviews inspire me to work harder and faster, so review please!**


	2. Encounter

**Whoo! I thought I'd never finish rewriting this chapter. Still here it is, in all its reincarnated glory ;) Sana has changed - and she's an improvement, I think. Thanks to my betas 1054SS325MP and Narayu again!**

**Bioware own Mass Effect and the twin Shepards are from 1054SS325MP's Warrior Ethos fics. Read them - they're good.**

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_**Wednesday 6 June 2181, The Blue Lotus**_

A muffled groan broke the silence of the hotel room as Paul shifted on the hard floor, rolling onto his back and opening bleary eyes. The soft light of morning filtering through the curtains fell on his tousled black hair and puffy eyes as he yawned and pushed his stiff body into a sitting posture. Blinking, he rubbed the accumulated sleep from his eyes.

"What time is it?" he groaned to the empty room as he levered himself up, using the terminal chair as a prop. He stretched and arched his back, bending over backwards and twisting from side to side until his spine cracked, the popping of the joints sounding like miniature firecrackers going off one after the other. With another yawn he flopped back into the seat, drooping his head over the back of the chair.

"Ah, god," he mumbled, "that is the last time I let myself fall asleep at the computer." A few seconds passed, then he snorted and corrected himself: "Terminal."

_Speaking of which ... _Paul straightened up and looked at the terminal, displaying an extranet page on turian existentialist poetry. _Now,_ _how did I get onto that?_ he wondered, slipping the omnigloves on and bringing up his search history. About three-quarters of the way down the list, he found two pages he'd bookmarked, bringing them up. One was from an Alliance Military journal, from January of that year. It showed a photograph of a younger version of the default male Shepard, captioned 'Captain John Shepard, N7, UNAS Army', and - in a six-page article said that he had been chosen to attend a foreign-service training event with the quarian Migrant Fleet Marine Corps. Paul felt both reassured by that and interested, wondering about the consequences that it might have with Tali later on. _He might actually get a Talimance in the first game, _he thought with a vague feeling of triumph. Paul always had been a Talimancer.

The sense of reassurance about Shepard the report gave him was dented somewhat by the other page, from Westerlund News. Underneath a photograph of a rather vicious-looking default female Shepard, subtitled 'Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard, N7', the text stated that she had been transferred from the Alliance Marine Corps to the Alliance Navy, going on to speculate on her stability - giving, as reason for this, 'countless' incidents of assault, overwhelmingly on batarians, as well as many unsavoury rumours that made Paul blink. According to the site, her conduct contrasted very unfavourably with that of her twin brother, Captain John Shepard, who was the same one in the military journal - Paul checked - and their mother, Naval Captain Hannah Shepard of the SSV Kilimanjaro.

_Two Shepards? _Paul wondered, absently stroking his left shoulder. _How is this going to work...if it does at all? I mean, we seem to have a Paragon and a Renegade..._

Paul sat in thought, staring at the images for a while, before looking up and checking the time.

"Only five thirty?" he muttered incredulously. "No way am I staying up." He got up from the terminal chair and walked over to the bed, stripping his creased outfit off as he went. Naked except for his underwear, he tumbled into bed and was fast asleep again in less than five minutes.

Four hours later, he emerged from the sheets refreshed and wide-awake, though with his hair in such a state it resembled a bird's nest. Stretching vigourously, he slipped out of bed and made his way over to the bathroom, peeling his underwear off and dropping them on the floor outside the shower as he stepped inside.

_Hmm,_ he thought, surveying the shower controls. _These things never stop getting more complicated. So what do I push to get a hot shower?_

It took him a minute or so, but he eventually managed to get a good stream of hot water going. A couple of minutes later he stepped out of the shower, streaming water, and padded across the room to his rucksack, where he fished out his toiletries bag and headed back. Paul felt that the care he took of his hair verged on the feminine, but then he did have a particularly fine crop of thick, soft black hair. He used to brush it five times daily.

_**Later**_

Paul was sitting in front of the terminal again, a tray of breakfast on the round table which he'd pulled over beside him. Slipping one hand into an omniglove and bringing up the extranet search engine, he ran a critical eye over the 'English" breakfast. _How much has an English breakfast changed in one hundred eighty years?_

He fingered the toast, pressing it between his nails to check the crispness - _limp and damp_; nibbled the bacon - _too salty, overcooked_; bit the end off a sausage - _chewy and not much flavour;_ skipped over the eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms - _they can't really change that;_ dipped a finger in the marmalade and licked it - _bitter_; took a sip of the tea and made a face - _too weak_.

He smiled._ The quintessential hotel English breakfast, unchanged in any way._

Rolling two strips of bacon, some scrambled egg and half a sausage in a piece of marmalade-slathered toast, he took a large bite and leant back, chewing vigourously. _Right, _he thought, _how to get on the Normandy: join an Alliance-sanctioned merc group - the French Foreign Legion, maybe. Be the best there is and then petition for a place. At the least I'll be able to kick some husk arse when the Reapers come._

He typed in 'French Foreign Legion' into the terminal. _La Légion is probably best because they give damn good training and they don't need ID._

The terminal blinked, showing a long list of sites. The top hit was an entry in the Wikipedia Galactus. Paul raised an eyebrow but selected it.

"Well, bugger," he said, reading the introduction, specifically a line saying: "the Legion was officially disbanded on Bastille Day, 14 July 2179."

He took a contemplative sip of tea and cracked his neck thoughtfully. An idea struck him and he scrolled down, looking at the bottom of the page. There were a list of links to other articles about mercenary groups - Eclipse, Umbra, Blue Suns, etc. - but one of them, the unimaginatively-named Commonwealth Law Enforcement and Security Force (CLESF) - was listed as an Alliance-service unit, and had its own extranet site given. He selected it and the terminal brought up the home page, CLESF in prominent red and black across the top.

_Well,_ he thought later, leaning back and eating the last piece of bacon, _that is very good indeed. No proof of identity required, full training, etc., reasonable pay...I'll probably pass the entry requirements, given that I'm fit and reasonably strong... the only problem is that the minimum period of mandatory service is five years. Shepard - whichever one it is - ends up on the Normandy in about two years, give or take. Besides, in all probability I'm not going to be distinguished enough in two years to be posted to the Normandy._

He sighed and rolled his shoulders. _Still, it's probably my best chance to get a job of any kind, given my lack of ID and qualifications in this verse. _Leaning forwards, he began searching for the nearest recruitment centre.

_**Later again, outside 24 Mission Court (CLESF Recruitment Office - London)**_

Paul stared up at the distinctive red-and-black CLESF logo above the glass doors, shifting the rucksack with what of his belongings he had left from one shoulder to the other. _Well, this is obviously the place._ The doors slid open as he approached, and with a glance at the two heavily armed guards standing at ease either side, Paul went in.

He found himself in a spacious atrium, all glass and steel with red and black tiled floors. Several doors lined the far end of the atrium, beneath a futuristic swooping staircase that terminated in a wide balcony. Beneath the balcony, neatly on the mid-line of the atrium, was a single desk with a terminal on it. Behind the desk sat a grizzled, grey-haired man with clearly evident battlescars on his face.

"Uh, Hi," Paul said tentatively, walking up to the desk. "I, uh, want to enlist as a trooper...?"

The veteran behind the desk fixed him with a piercing gaze.

"You want to enlist?" he asked, and Paul nodded. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen," Paul replied, and the man's face twisted.

"I wouldn't recommend it, kid," he said dismissively. "You don't look tough enough."

Paul felt affronted. "I'm plenty tough enough," he replied.

"You sure 'bout that?" the recruitment officer growled. "You think you've got what it takes, huh?" He snorted. "I've seen far tougher men than you flunk out of basic training. What makes you think you'll get in?"

"Hey," Paul began, but the man cut him off.

"You think you're good enough, maybe you might be," he said, the tone of his voice leaving no doubt as to his opinion. "I can't stop you from enlisting." He sat up straighter behind the desk, steepled his fingers and glared at Paul. "Are you aware that by enlisting you are agreeing, unconditionally and irrevocably, to five years of active service in CLESF employ, not counting time spent in disciplinary sentences, medical rest, or captivity?"

"Uh, yeah," Paul replied. _I suppose, like the French Foreign Legion, they have to make sure that anyone who might drop out is discouraged from even signing up in the first place._

"And that the five years of active service are compulsory and non-negotiable, and cannot be terminated in any way whatsoever, excluding death or dishonourable discharge?"

"Ye-es," Paul said slowly, wondering if, when the time came, perhaps he could wrangle a dishonourable discharge..._no, don't be stupid, that'd never work._

_"_And you are fully aware of the dangers you will face should you enlist, including death in action or lifelong maiming?"

Paul hesitated - _do I really want to go through with this? -_ before replying in the affirmative.

"And you know that you will be required to obey any and all orders given to you by higher-ranking personnel, as long as they are in accordance with the CLESF Statute of Discipline, even should said obedience cost you your life?"

"Yes," Paul replied, beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable.

"And you still want to enlist?" the scar-faced man asked, still keeping Paul transfixed in his gimlet-eyed gaze.

"Yes," Paul said, breathing a mental sigh of relief.

"Right then," the recruitment officer grunted, pulling a datapad from the desk and thrusting it at Paul. "Fill this in."

Paul took it and went over to sit on one of the steel chairs that lined the walls of the atrium. He glanced at the screen and began to type.

Full (real) name: Paul Leonard Alleyn.

Full (enlistment) name: Paul Alleyn.

Nationality: British.

National Identity: English.

Age (words): Nineteen.

Hair Colour: Black.

Hair Type: Straight.

Eye Colour: Brown.

Height (Imperial or _Metric_): Five feet eleven and a half inches.

The list went on and on. Weight, sports played, phobias, philias, sexual orientation, marital status, dietary needs, disabilities, allergies, religion…it took Paul over an hour to fill it all in. Eventually he stood up with a grunt, flexing his lower back, and handed the datapad back to the recruitment officer.

"Good," the man said. "You Christian or what?"

"Uh...Unitarian, if that. It's on the pad," Paul replied. "Why?"

"Oath," the veteran supplied shortly. "Right, Unitarian..." he rummaged in the desk a bit and pulled out a Unitarian Bible. "Hand on this, and repeat after me," he said, and Paul put his hand on the book.

"I, Paul Leonard Alleyn do solemnly swear that I will protect and defend the United Kingdom of Great Britain and through it the Systems Alliance against all enemies, alien and human; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the Kingand his ministers and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Universal Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

"Now," the recruitment officer said, "you're now formally part of CLESF. From now on, you are a recruit, the lowest of the low. You will address any CLESF personnel proper as Sir or Ma'am, or by their rank. Is that clear?"

"Yes, uh, sir."

"Good." The officer pressed a button on the desk. "Do you have any property, that is belongings or anything else, anywhere that you need disposed of?"

Paul tapped the backpack he was carrying.

"Apart from this, no, sir."

"Anything that needs to be wound up?"

"Yes sir, my hotel room. I booked a room for three days, but I've only been there one day."

"We'll take care of that. Do you have an account to which we send the refund?"

A door slid open and an expressionless woman in the CLESF uniform stepped in. "Corporal Hendy," the recruitment officer said, swivelling in his chair to face her, "just a minute." He turned back to Paul.

"No, sir, I don't." Paul said.

"We'll give you one. Is that all?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The officer turned to the corporal. "Show Paul to the recruits' quarters," he ordered, then, turning back to Paul, he said, "I'll just give you a run-down of what happens now. You will have quarters here until a flight leaves for our Earth training depot. That should be in three days from now. Although you will not be allowed to leave the building during this time, it is the last period of time for five years that can be said to be fully yours, so make good use of it. You will take a few tests and evaluations, but not that many. That usually takes a whole day, so you'll take them tomorrow. When you arrive at the depot, you will undergo a series of in-depth aptitude tests, medical evaluations, the like. You will be issued with uniforms, and your civilian clothing sold and the cost paid into your account. You won't be needing civvies for five years," he added, with a grim smile. "Then you will be conveyed to a star-orbit centre, where you will be trained for whichever of the three CLESF arms you have been selected for - Assault, Heavy, Sniper. If you have been marked as fit for RAPTOR service after the initial test here, then you will be informed before you leave for the depot and you will be able to make an application to join the RAPTOR training course. Afterwards, your training, which takes six months for RAPTOR recruits and four for the others, will also include whatever physical alterations and enhancements are necessary. Once you have completed training, you will be posted to a unit, where you will serve your five-year term. Is that clear?"

Paul nodded. "Yes, sir."

The recruitment officer smiled for the first time. "Good luck."

He nodded at the corporal, who said: "Follow me," and went back through the door she came from.

"So, are there other recruits here already, uh, Corporal Hendy, ma'am?" Paul asked, as she led him along a steel-grey corridor and up a flight of stairs.

"Yes," she replied shortly, "six."

"Can you tell me who they are, ma'am?"

"No."

While Paul was wondering if he should try and press the subject further, she stopped abruptly outside a door and, tapping on a keypad, said curtly, "Through there."

"Uh, thanks, ma'am," Paul began, but she cut him off by shoving him through the door and shutting it behind him. He blinked at the closed door a couple of times, taken aback slightly, then turned to face the room.

There were six people in the room, five of whom were watching a film on a massive screen on the far wall, while the last was curled up in an armchair in a far corner, reading.

The five watching the film were all human. The first one was a big guy, muscle-bound with short-cropped brown hair. The white tank top he wore showed off his impressive six-pack and pecs, and on his bare right shoulder he had a tattoo of a blue fleur-de-lis. A crucifix hung on his chest from a golden chain.

On his right was a scrawny kid who looked about Paul's age, with greasy-looking shoulder-length black hair framing a slightly pointed face. Grey eyes, harder than Paul expected, stared shrewdly out from under thin eyebrows.

To his right was a middle-aged man who looked like a transplant from an earlier time. Tall, ramrod-straight and broad-shouldered, with steel-grey hair and blue eyes, the defiantly dark and impressive handlebar moustache he sported completed the image of a British officer from the Imperial era. He was dressed in semi-formal attire, cutting a further contrast with the other casually dressed recruits.

Next to him were a pair of identical strawheaded twins, both with deeply tanned skin, freckles, and piercing blue eyes. Each wore a single golden earring, but in opposite ears - something that Paul assumed was to help people tell them apart.

Paul gave a start of surprise when he saw the last person. Sitting in an armchair, her legs folded under her and a book in her hands, was the selfsame asari he'd run into twice already, dressed in a low-cut black t-shirt and trousers and staring back at him with an expression of shock and suspicion on her pointed - and, Paul realised, rather attractive - face. Their eyes met and she held his gaze for almost ten seconds in total silence before looking back at her book.

_What was that about?_ Paul wondered as he made his way over to a chair, dropping his bag beside it. A quick glance at the film showed it to be some sort of romantic comedy, and he shuddered delicately. Rather than watch, he walked across the room to a bookshelf that ran the length of a wall, browsing the titles. Most were by authors he had never heard of before, but here and there were classics he remembered well. As he moved down it, running his fingers along the spines, he realised that the asari had stood up and come over to the bookshelf as well.

"Uh, hi," he said tentatively, glancing at her quickly. She merely nodded in reply and ignored him, so he turned his attention back to the books and then froze as she suddenly moved closer to him and, in a subaudible whisper, hissed, "Meet me in the canteen in five." Without waiting for a reply, she moved away from him and went out of the room via a door on the far wall.

_What on Earth..._Paul wondered, staring after her confusedly before realising it and looking hastily back at the book in his hands. He moved back to his seat, mind in a whirl. _Why would she want to meet me discreetly? I'm assuming it's discretion she wants ... who is she? Is she maybe setting me up - is she going to report me to the recruitment officer or someone? But no, what would she report? I doubt being found fainting on the ground is something discharge-worthy ... _he smirked as an amusing thought hit him._ Maybe she's my guardian angel, sent by whatever power put me here! She'll be all mystical and say something about my coming having brought great changes, or how I have the chance to shape the future or something. She might give me some weird and magical guiding object, an orange maybe, as it's the canteen she wants to meet me in ... Or - _he bit his lip to keep from laughing - _this is an MMORPG and she's the mod's avatar, come to remove me from the game!_

Pushing the thoughts from his head, he opened the book and pretended to read it while keeping an eye on the wall-mounted clock. After roughly five minutes he stood up and left the room, going through the same door she had exited through.

The way to the canteen was obvious enough, being signposted on the wall. He followed the arrows down the corridor, took a right at a fork, headed down a flight of stairs and took a second right to see the canteen doors immediately in front of him. He pushed them open and walked in, mentally preparing himself for whatever might happen.

What did happen took him by surprise.

As the doors swung shut behind him, he felt a force seize hold of him with tremendous force. It felt as if he'd fallen face first into a puddle of treacle. Sloly he began to rise into the air, the force gripping his body tightly. He tried to move but was unable to. He darted his gaze round the canteen frantically looking for the asari.

"Why are you following me?" she snapped, coming into view from behind him where she'd been standing by the door, unseen. "Answer me!" She relaxed the force on his jaws to let him speak.

"I'm not!" he managed to gasp, his throat and lungs still being constricted. "I swear it!"

"Then why are you here?" she retorted, glaring at him.

"I wanted a job!" he said, as she let up a bit on his chest. "I had no idea that you had joined up, I swear!"

She let up on the Stasis, letting him fall a foot to the ground. He got up wincing as she stepped a pace back.

"So you weren't following me?" she asked, some suspicion leaving her voice.

"God," Paul grunted, rubbing his knees and elbows, "no. Look," he stammered, straightening up, "I'm sorry if I've upset you or anything. I really didn't know you had joined up as well. It must just be coincidence or something."

"Maybe..." she replied, still eying him doubtfully.

Paul shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," he repeated, raising his hands defensively.

"Alright," the asari said, throwing her hands in the air. "No, it's not alright. _I'm_ sorry. It's just... I'm... I'm a bit... paranoid, I guess." She turned away and leant on one of the tables with a sigh. "Just... just forget about it."

"Uh... it's fine," Paul said. _I suppose._ "Hey, uh... my name's Paul. Paul Alleyn," he added tentatively, holding out a hand.

The asari ran a hand over her tentacles and sighed, not turning round or answering.

Paul hesitated a moment then dropped his hand, reddening a bit in embarrassment. _Thank god she wasn't looking..._

"I, uh... I'll be going back up then," he said, gesturing at the doors even though she couldn't see him.

There was no response, and he turned and left hesitantly, glancing back a couple of times at the motionless asari.

Outside the doors he leant against the wall and exhaled. _My god... what the hell is wrong with her?_ he thought. _No kidding she's paranoid. Paranoid like I'm slightly misplaced!_ He shook his head and set off slowly back to the 'common' room, where he sat and thought, staring off at the far wall and rubbing his left shoulder absent-mindedly.

About ten minutes later the film ended and the other teenager asked the room at large, "Anyone for poker?"

Not waiting for a reply, he went over to a table by one wall. "Gimme a hand," he called over his shoulder, and the muscular man went across to help him move it. Together they pulled it into the middle of the room, and the others moved chairs up round it.

"Hey, new guy," one twin called, "wanna play?"

"Uh, sure," Paul replied, standing and pulling his chair over as well.

"Right, what stakes?" the teenager asked, resting his fingers lightly on the table. "I got three thousand on me, so... a thousand?"

"Sounds fine to me," the moustached man said, and the twins nodded in unison. Paul thought a moment - _I have over two thousand left -_ then nodded as well, and the muscular man shrugged.

"Well, okay then," the kid said, moving a datapad and a pack of cards off a shelf and onto the table. "Stick your chits in, and we'll play."

As Paul inserted his chit into the pad, he heard the door open. He tensed up as he heard the asari speak.

"Hey, you guys playing poker?" she asked, moving into his field of view. To his relief, she seemed to be smiling a little.

"Yeah," the teenager replied, "you want in?"

"Why not?" she said, pulling a chair over and sitting down across from Paul. He caught her eye and tried a tentative smile. She held his gaze for a few moments, then gave him a small smile in return just as he was about to look away.

"How about introductions?" the moustached man asked, glancing at Paul.

"Okay," Paul replied. "I'm Paul Alleyn, from, uh, Wales."

"Edward Graff, formerly of His Majesty's Army," the moustached man said, proffering a hand.

"Pierre Montcalm, from Quebec and of La Légion until it was disbanded," the muscular man contributed, trying to crush Paul's hand in his but failing. Paul felt a small stir of pride that once again, his hands - the largest and longest-fingered he'd ever seen - had defied any attempts to crush them.

"Neville Birkwood, from Manchester, and my brother Nicholas," said one of the twins - the one with an earring in his right ear.

"Jim Marshall, from London," the teenager said, nodding at Paul, who nodded back.

"Sana T'Freyn," the asari said, reaching out a hand. "Nice to meet you," she added, meeting Paul's gaze as she clasped his hand in her firm and smooth one. She gave no hint that they'd met before, nor that the episode in the canteen had happened at all. He debated mentally whether or not to call her out on it, but decided against it in the end. For one thing, he was too chicken to do so. For another, if she wanted to start again, who was he to argue?

"Nice to meet you too," he replied, giving her a smile.

"Alright, introductions are over, let's play!" Jim said, beginning to deal out the cards.

_**Later that night**_

Paul rolled over in his bunk restlessly. He was finding it hard to sleep. _Not surprising,_ he thought. He'd realised during the evening that something was very odd. Somehow, he could understand Sana's language. _It could just be that she's learnt English, _he mused. _I'm not wearing a translator, and I don't think that I have an implanted one._

For the twentieth time that evening, he reached up and felt the skin behind and above his ears, searching for anything odd. For the twentieth time, he drew a blank. _If she's not speaking English, which I hope she is, I can only suppose that the warp journey messed with my brain a bit. Which is frankly disturbing. What else did it change?_

He rolled over again and tugged at the sheets, pulling them into a more comfortable position.

Lying on his back with his legs crossed, he stared up at the bottom of the upper bunk - occupied by Jim - and shook his head hard to knock the thoughts out._ Think about something else, _he thought.

He picked idly at the sheet, noticing the CLESF insignia stamped on the corner. Mentally he reviewed what he knew of CLESF.

As far as he could remember from reading their extranet page that the morning, they were in effect a mercenary group, used by the Alliance for missions that were illegal, or at best of questionable legality, sort of like the Corsairs group but a bit less... dirty in context. CLESF was relatively large, having about twenty thousand troops and triple that in support staff, with bases on most of the planets in the Systems Alliance, and a base even on the Citadel. The troops were organised into four wings, Assault, Heavy, Sniper, and RAPTOR. The latter were the élite, the crémé de la crémé of the force, equivalent almost to the Alliance N7. RAPTOR stood for Reconnaissance, Assault, suPpression and infilTration OpeRations - _a really, really bad, forced acronym,_ Paul thought_ -_ and there were only two thousand five hundred RAPTOR troops, divided into squads of ten.

_Now that is where I'd like to end up,_ Paul thought. _Not that it'll be easy. According to the site, about eight thousand people galaxy-wide are recruited as CLESF troopers, but only four hundred of the recruits are accepted into the RAPTOR training program, and more than half of those don't make it._

Paul's mind turned to the other recruits.

Pierre apparently had been in the French Foreign Legion for five years before it was disbanded, then chose to join CLESF 'to see the difference,' so he said, and claimed to have no family any more. He was also gay, and spent some time hitting on Jim.

Jim Marshall didn't talk much, and said very little about himself. The most Paul could gather was that he was originally Welsh but spoke only English, had been brought up in a London orphanage, actually. He was snarky but not unduly so. Apparently he wanted to be a medic.

The twins were relatively silent, but had some wit. They were in CLESF for the money and the adventure. They wanted to be in an Assault Pack. From what they said, they'd been the bad boys of their neighbourhood, and had more than enough fight experience.

Graff was very clear about his goal, and quite forthcoming about his background. He wanted to be a staff officer. He had, it seemed, been a staff officer - a lieutenant colonel - in the British Army before but had been discharged honourably when the Army had another of the periodic cut-downs the Alliance was imposing on its member states. He didn't particularly fancy getting stuck in the Alliance and so had eventually joined CLESF. He had had a wife, but she'd died relatively recently from a sudden stroke. He also had a sister, who had been in CLESF for almost ten years. She was a RAPTOR trooper, head of a squad called Graff's Gunners.

Sana was a bit of an enigma to Paul. She hadn't once that evening brought up the incident in the canteen, though he wondered whether that was simply due to the fact that they hadn't been alone at any time. Not that he minded, of course. _Better to just start over, I guess._ She did seem to pay a lot of attention to him, though. It was a bit of a novel experience for Paul, who'd always been a geek and a recluse, but he wasn't about to complain. _She is certainly a very pretty asari,_ he thought. _Fine features, that so-delicate nose... and the fire in her eyes! _His brow furrowed a moment as he remembered something that had happened the previous evening. Pierre had made a joke about Sana's breasts, a reasonable enough joke to make given her exceedingly low-cut shirt, and Sana had looked extremely uncomfortable, her hand rising to cover the exposed flesh. It was slightly odd that she should seem so modest while wearing such revealing clothes.

Paul wondered what she was doing in CLESF. His mind turned over the possibility that she was a criminal, or perhaps running away from something. Her actions in the canteen certainly lent credence to that idea. _Maybe she's an Ardat-Yashki on the run,_ he thought, with a snort of amusement. _No, she doesn't act like Morinth did, and if I remember right Ardat-Yashki exude some kind of enticing aura, which I can't say I felt - and nor did anyone else, it seems_. _Unless of course she's disguising it? _That turned his thoughts, beginning to be weighed down with sleepiness, to her face and whether she was wearing a mask…the thought of a mask brought, by association, Tali to his mind.

_What will I do when her loyalty mission in ME2 comes round, if I manage to get onto the Normandy? That is, if she even exists… there's no guarantee of that. But if it does, what will I do, knowing what happens? _Paul shook his head and rolled over onto his front, burying his face in the pillow. _Try to sleep, _he thought, _just try to sleep._

_**Thursday 7 June 2181, CLESF Recruitment Office - London**_

"...perfectly fine, good. Right. Take your shirt off, please," the medic who was dealing with Paul requested.

Paul hesitated a moment, restraining his hand from moving to his left shoulder, then pulled it off. _No point trying to hide it..._

"Okay, no muscular defects or skin lesions, good... good muscle tone... hmm..." he trailed off when he saw Paul's left shoulder, and the network of crisscrossing red lines that covered it to halfway down the arm. Paul tensed up completely as the medic glanced over them slowly. _Damn..._

"Look like you had a cat that really didn't know where its scratching post was or something, boy. I really hope they are cat scratches," he said, "because if they're not you're going to have to walk out that door and go home."

_Thank god! _Paul thought. "Well," he replied, "I had, uh, a bad accident with a hawthorn bush that had some wire fencing tangled in it." He tried to look convincing as the medic eyed him thoughtfully, then breathed a silent sigh of relief as the man nodded.

"Fine then," the medic said, and carried on with the assessment. Paul relaxed and let the tension bleed out of him. _A good thing I came up with that cover story back when I was going to school and rumours were flying round, _he thought. _Shoulda known that they'd do a proper physical check-up. Not that I could have done anything about it - self-harm scars are not easy to hide. Especially not when there are that many. _He sneaked a glance at his shoulder, seeing the fifty-seven individual scars, each roughly an inch long, that lined his skin in a rough fishnet pattern; relics of all the times of stress, worry, or depression he'd had since turning seventeen. _Thank god they don't seem to worry that much about it. I mean, the guy basically told me to give him a bullshit cover story. _He blinked as he realised that the medic was talking to him again.

"Right. Now, we're going to test your fitness levels, stamina, strength and agility. Follow me, please."

_**Later**_

Stepping through the door into the common room, that evening, Paul heaved a dramatic sigh. Everyone, however, was intent on a chess game between Graff and Nicholas, and no-one noticed his entry. He shrugged and went over to the sofa, where he poked Jim in the shoulder.

"Budge up," he said.

Jim glanced up, moving along a space.

"Hey, Paul," he grinned. "Finished your tests?"

"Thank god, yes," Paul groaned, flopping down. "Who knew a few simple aptitude tests could be so tiring?"

"We could have told you that," Sana said, smiling across at Paul from her armchair. Neville looked up and smiled at Paul's tired look.

"Did they make you do the 'run until you drop' thing?" he asked.

Paul nodded. "Yeah. Problem is, I used to run ten miles every day back home. So by the time I dropped, I'd run almost forty miles. Had to be carried off the machine." He leant forwards and looked interestedly at the board, assessing the position.

"Whose turn is it?" he asked. Graff raised his hand without looking up.

Pierre pointed at the board. "If you moved your queen three squares diagonally to the right, his rook would be wide open."

"Shut it, Pierre," Nicholas muttered, "he's doing well enough without your help."

"Checkmate in three moves," Paul stated.

"For who?" Jim asked.

"Nicholas."

"What?" Graff snapped, looking sharply at Paul.

"Yeah," Paul replied. "Won't say how, but it's possible."

Graff shook his head and knocked over his king. "If it is, then I give up."

Paul blinked. "You do know you could have checkmated in four moves, don't you?"

Graff glared at him. "What's the matter with you? Why couldn't you have told me that first?"

"Because I saw the three-move first, that's why," Paul replied, raising his hands apologetically.

Graff made a discontent grumble and stood up, muttering about getting a drink. Sana leant forwards and began resetting the pieces. "Fancy a game, Paul?" she asked.

Paul blinked. "Uh, sure, I guess," he replied. As he started helping her reset the board, he pondered her attitude towards him. Starting that morning, she had been extremely friendly towards him - sitting opposite to him in the canteen, talking almost exclusively to him... he found it odd, given that she'd practically tried to kill him the previous day. _Maybe she's trying to make up for it,_ he thought. _Or perhaps she's schizophrenic... _Whatever it was, he could not deny that he liked her attention as much as he found it confusing. After all, she was very attractive - perhaps a little too _predatory_ to be beautiful, but certainly an exceedingly fine-featured person. Also - he hesitated to apply the description to her, but it was true - she had a great personality.

Didn't mean he was going to go easy on her, though.

Paul glanced up as she placed the last piece on the board and noticed something slightly peculiar. Tucked into the top of her t-shirt was a piece of cloth that looked like it was part of a CLESF bedsheet, covering her bare skin right up to her neck.

"Uh, Sana," he asked, tentatively, "why do you have part of a CLESF sheet in your shirt?"

She glanced down at the piece of cloth, tucked neatly into the top of her low-cut shirt to cover her cleavage. "Oh, the shirt was too low-cut for my liking," she answered, tucking a rebellious end back in.

"So why not just change the shirt?" Pierre asked.

She shrugged and moved a pawn. "Your move, Paul," she said, looking up.

He moved a piece of his own and the subject dropped as people watched the game progress. Paul, though, was still thinking about it. _Now, why didn't she answer the question? _he mused, moving a knight forward. _If she has only the one shirt - I have only these clothes, so no biggie - why not just say so? _He moved a rook two squares to the left. _Does she not want people to know? If so, why?_

"Check," Sana said with a small smirk. Paul blinked in surprise and concentrated on the game, banishing speculation for the moment.

Half an hour later he leant back with a sigh of satisfaction.

Sana gave him a mock glare. "I was being nice," she said.

"Yeah, right," Jim snorted. "Face it, he took you apart after that first check."

Sana laughed. "I know."

"Well," Paul said, standing up, "I'm going to get a drink. Anyone want one?"

Sana shook her head, as did Graff, who had come back with a gin and tonic a while before.

Pierre raised a hand. "Coffee," he said, "Double espresso, please."

The twins, busy putting the chessboard away, said simultaneously, "Ginger beer."

Jim stood up and followed Paul out the door. "I'll come along, help you carry the drinks."

As they went down the stairs to the canteen, Jim commented, "You know, Sana really acts different when you're around."

"Really?" Paul said, glancing at the other teen. "How so?"

"Well," Jim replied, scratching his head, "you know, she's much more lively when you're around. I mean, before you came - well, she was only here for a day, but still - she was quiet and didn't talk much. Then you come and she's suddenly taking part in stuff, playing poker, you remember?"

Pauk nodded as he pushed open the canteen door, and Jim carried on, "Then this morning, she's sitting there, chatting away with you, then while you're doing all the tests she's all quiet again. Then you come back, and snap!" he snapped his fingers, to illustrate his point, "happy Sana back again. I know it's not my place or anything, but are you two like, in a relationship or something?"

Paul laughed. "No," he replied, as he tried to figure out how to use the coffee machine. "We've never really met before, actually. Definitely don't know each other." He frowned at the machine. "How do you turn this thing on?"

"There's a button marked ON," Jim said, leaning over to press something on the back of the machine. "What d'you mean, never _really_ met?"

"Yeah, I'd have totally seen that," Paul answered, putting a cup beneath the nozzle, "Anyway, I just bumped into her in the street a couple of times the day before yesterday. That's it. I'd never seen her before in my life," he added, as Jim gave him a disbelieving look. "Seriously. Never ever even knew she existed until then, didn't know her name until yesterday."

"Huh," Jim said. _Huh indeed, _Paul thought. "Well then," Jim went on, "she _maaaay_ be interested in you then."

Paul laughed. "In me? No way."

Jim shrugged. "If you think so..." he said, putting two bottles of ginger beer on a tray along with a tall glass of... _something_.

"What is that?" Paul asked, pointing at the cloudy yellow liquid - or perhaps solid, given that the straw stuck in it was standing vertically in the centre of the glass.

"Banana smoothie," Jim replied.

"Uh, if you say so," Paul said dubiously, putting the coffee on another tray. He added a can of levo orange-flavoured Tupari. _I've always wondered what my ancestors looked like._

As they made their way back up to the common room, Paul mused over what Jim had said. _No,_ he decided, _he must be wrong. She's probably just as lively when I'm not around as when I am - he's only known her less than three days. She's definitely not interested in me either, unless as a potential pursuer, I suppose... yeah, he's wrong._

He pushed the common room door open to see that the others had pushed the sofas together in front of the tv screen.

"Here, Paul," Sana called, patting the sofa beside her.

"What are we watching?" Paul asked as he sat down next to her, after passing Pierre his drink.

"Fleet and the Flotilla," she replied. "It's dubbed in English, so don't worry."

"Okay..." he said, leaning back. _This ought to be fun._ As the opening credits rolled, he popped the can of Tupari open and took a sip.

"Hello, descendant," Sana whispered in his ear, putting on a deep and scratchy voice. "I am your great-great-great grandfather..." He shot her an amused glare, and she winked at him.

* * *

**Tupari brings your ancestors back!**

**Review the crap out of this, please!**

**I know the self-harm thing may offend or upset people, but I'm trying to make Paul less of a one-dimensional character. All people have flaws; Paul's is that he self-harms when under stress.**

**Also, I need to make one thing clear. When I say CLESF is a mercenary group, I do NOT mean like the Blue Suns, or whatever. It is not an illegitimate association of people who sell their services to the highest bidder, or anything. It is a mercenary force in the same sense that the French Foreign Legion is a mercenary force, or the British Army, or to an extent even the US Army, come to think of it. The mercenary part comes from the fact that the troopers are not drafted or conscripted, they choose to sign up and are paid for their service. The entire British Army at the start of the First World War was a mercenary force.**

**Anyway, that's all!**

**Morgaur out.**


	3. Spaceward

**Hi everyone! A new chapter is up, yay! People who are reading this fic - I assume there are, since the views keep going up - please review it!**

**Thanks again to my betas 1054SS325MP and Narayu - you guys are awesome!**

**Bioware's stuff is Bioware's, the twin Shepards - when they get in - belong to 1054SS325MP. **

* * *

_**Saturday 9 June 2178, CLESF (Earth) Depot, Leicester**_

"Alright recruits," the escorting trooper said, standing up as the sound of the plane's engines died, "belts off." He palmed the main door's haptic interface and it slid open with a hiss.

Paul caught Jim's eye, sitting across from him.

"Nervous some?" he grinned, and chuckled when Jim made a face at him. Paul released the catch on his belt and stood up, lifting his rucksack from beneath his chair and slinging it over one shoulder.

There was a faint clunk and the trooper raised his hand. "Single file off," he called. "Straight onto the platform and down the stairs to the main door."

They moved forwards, Graff first, then Pierre, then the others. Paul was at the back of the line, behind Sana. _Damn it, _he thought, trying to look anywhere but at her shapely rear end. _Sometimes chivalry can be a burden..._

The steel stairs rang hollow beneath his feet as he made his way down from the plane, glancing round the hangar. It was massive, with six other planes inside and CLESF personnel everywhere, conspicuous against the white surfaces in their black and red uniforms. At the main door, some twenty feet away, a bare-headed corporal was standing. The escort saluted as they came up, bringing his right fist smartly up into his left shoulder.

"All present and correct, sir," he said, halting at attention.

"Dismissed," the corporal replied with a nod. He turned his eye on Paul and the other recruits, seemingly making a quick count.

"Follow me," he then ordered, immediately turning and marching out of the door.

They followed him out, emerging from the hangar onto a wide, well-lit, walled parade ground. Paul glanced up at the evening sky as the corporal led them over to a large complex at the far side of the ground. The glare from the floodlights obscured any stars that might have shone through the clouds. _This is probably my only chance to get up there, _he thought, feeling a sudden wave of trepidation sweep over him.

* * *

Paul glanced up as Sana came out of the office and back into the waiting room.

The corporal nodded at him. "You next," he ordered.

Paul stood up, returning a grin Sana shot at him as she sat in his place. Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the door, which shut behind him.

A grey-haired sergeant-major sat behind a desk in front of him. To one side sat a secretary behind a holoscreen. The sergeant-major gestured to a chair in front of the desk. "Sit down," he said, picking up a datapad from a stack on his desk. He stared at it for a few seconds before putting it back down and steepling his fingers. "Why did you join CLESF?" he asked.

"Well," Paul replied slowly, "I wanted some adventure. Some spice in my life." He stopped, collecting his thoughts. _What do I say? _"I wanted to go out and do something, something with a lot of action and danger. Preferably something that I got paid for doing." _Leaving out the Reapers and Shepard and everything else... that's actually mostly the truth._

"So why not join the Alliance military?" the sergeant-major queried.

Paul hesitated. _Because they want identification and I don't have any._ "Because I didn't want to become tied down for life. I'm not a career soldier," he said, finally. _Leastaways, I don't think so._

"Fair enough," the sergeant-major said. "What branch of CLESF were you thinking of specifically?"

"Eh... RAPTOR," Paul replied. _Might as well... they can only refuse and stick me in Assault or something..._

"RAPTOR," the sergeant-major repeated. He straightened up in his chair.

"Joining a RAPTOR squad is no walk in the park, boy. RAPTORs are the best of the best, the élite. The training is much harder and the service is harsher. The death rate is lower than the others; but that is because only the toughest, fastest, smartest get through the training. If you go for RAPTOR, there is only a twenty percent chance that you will get in, but an eighty percent chance you will fail and get downgraded to Assault First Class — or lower." He paused and picked the datapad up again, looking over it. "From what you've put down and the preliminary tests, you should make a good candidate. Like I said, though, you only have a twenty percent chance. Are you sure you want to pick RAPTOR?"

Paul nodded. "I'll take my chances."

"Okay then," the sergeant-major said. "Good luck. Dismissed."

* * *

_**Thursday 14 June 2178, CLESF (Earth) Depot, Leicester**_

"Seems quite a few people," Sana commented, glancing round the waiting room she and Paul had just entered. There were ten others sitting around, alone or in groups; seven men, two women, and a turian. Female, if the narrow, curvy mandibles and slighter build were anything to go by.

"What," Paul asked with light sarcasm, "thought we were the only two for RAPTOR training or something?"

"No, of course not, you idiot," Sana retorted, punching him gently in the arm.

"Could you stop calling me that?" Paul complained, rubbing his arm in mock pain.

They had undergone the requisite five days' worth of testing, both physical and psychological, being pronounced fit for RAPTOR training at the end, much to their combined satisfaction. Paul had found himself getting closer to Sana over the few days he'd known her; still mildly nervous, but enjoying the chemistry they seemed to have. They had had plenty of free time, relatively speaking, during the testing period, and had ended up spending practically all of that time together. The others had gone off by themselves: Graff immediately became friendly with several other ex-field-grade officers; similarly Pierre had found some ex-legionnaires to hang out with. The twins had become rather taciturn and reserved, which surprised Paul somewhat until he realised that they did not know anyone and were probably trying to avoid further developing friendships with people they might never see again. Not that he could see any problem with keeping in touch via the extranet — unless of course they did not have accounts. Paul could well understand their behaviour, but he felt more comfortable talking to Sana than being his usual loner self. Jim was the only one of the group who had not moved away from Paul and Sana, spending most evenings chatting with them. He had been accepted into the medical wing, and had told Paul that he intended to try to get into the RAPTOR medical training program; an endeavour in which Paul had wished him the best of success.

Absentmindedly, Paul rubbed the still-raw scar behind his right ear where he'd been implanted with a translator device. He had a matching scar behind his left ear. The riddle of how he'd been able to understand Sana had been answered — she did speak English after all. He rubbed the scar again and Sana poked him in the side.

"Stop scratching," she murmured, "you'll just inflame it."

"Yes, mum," he grinned, and she looked away with a smile.

Paul wondered idly to himself whether he was falling for her. True, he mused, she was attractive, but translating asari years to human years she was practically jailbait, even if asari viewed such things differently. Plus, he reminded himself, he knew practically nothing about her background. Not that he'd dared ask - the memory of her ambush in the canteen was still fresh.

He sneaked a glance at her while she was looking elsewhere, admiring her delicate features and high cheekbones. No doubt about it, he thought, she certainly was a beauty. Perhaps, he mused, perhaps if they both made it through training and were posted to the same squad, perhaps he might try to start a relationship…although he wasn't quite sure how he'd handle the whole 'from an alternate universe where this is all a computer game' problem. Especially as she was an asari and he had really no idea how asari mind-melding worked.

A drawling, arrogant voice broke him out of his reverie. "What's a good-looking chick like you doing here, baby?"

Paul glanced up sharply to see a tall, fine-limbed man drop into the seat on Sana's other side. Ruggedly handsome, with fair hair short-cropped like all of them in the standard military haircut, he oozed arrogance and confidence in his own looks and physique. And really, Paul thought with slight envy, he looked like he had every right to be confident, sporting well-defined pectoral muscles and six-pack, which the uniform did nothing to disguise.

The man grinned roguishly at Sana. "Come hang with me, baby," he added, winking broadly, "you don't have to stick with old skeleton there."

Sana turned to look at the man and Paul felt a flare of annoyance that had nothing to do with being called a skeleton. He kept quiet though; he had absolutely no clue how to act in such a situation. Back home — _my universe,_ he reminded himself — he had been such an outsider that he had not had a single relationship with a girl until his friendship with Sana, and this rendered him slightly helpless. _Besides, _a callous part of his mind said, _it'll be interesting to see what she might do..._

"I'm sorry," Sana said coolly, "do I know you?"

"Name's Bonzo Medina," the man drawled, flashing his teeth in another wide grin. "I can be a good friend, baby, real good," he went on, moving to put his hand proprietorially on Sana's thigh, "what d'you say?"

Sana's response was lightning fast. As his hand touched her thigh her biotics flared, knocking his hand away as she simultaneously struck him in the face with enough force to pitch him off his chair and onto his knees. One of the women in the room clapped.

"Don't touch me," Sana hissed, "ever again."

Bonzo's face went bright red and he looked ready to seize hold of her, but a particularly sharp biotic flare made him change his mind. Scrambling to his feet he glared at Sana as he retreated across the room to a couple of other men, seemingly his friends.

"You ain't heard the last of this, bitch," he snarled. "One day you gonna change your mind, you count on it!"

Sana snorted and shook her head.

"Asshole," she muttered.

"Does that guy actually expect to pick up girls that way?" Paul wondered, watching the man glower in his seat.

"He's an asshole, either way," Sana shrugged.

"No kidding. Nice hit, incidentally," Paul said. "I'd say he got bitch-slapped, but I don't want to insult you."

She grinned and seemed about to say something when the sound of the door opening caught their attention. Paul glanced up to see a turian corporal enter the room. Quickly everyone rose from their seats and stood to attention, saluting in the CLESF manner, right fist into left shoulder.

The corporal glanced round and nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Ship's ready," he said, in that odd flanging tone common to turians, and led them out of the room.

* * *

_**Thursday 14 June 2178, Launching Pad 7, CLESF (Earth) Depot, Leicester**_

The ship, _Tranquility_ written on its side in red letters, sat on a bare concrete pad, big and bulky and black. _I love CLESF's colour scheme,_ Paul thought as they approached it. Casting an interested eye over the craft, he estimated it to be perhaps twenty to twenty-five metres long and about ten metres high, roughly the same shape as the Kodiak shuttles from in-game but considerably larger. A couple of CLESF troopers stood guard nearby, leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the control tower that stood at one corner of the pad. Two bulky men, with the red diamond-shaped tabs on their upper arms that Paul had learnt signified drill sergeants, stood either side of the _Tranquility_'s open doors. One held a datapad in his hand, from which he checked them off as they climbed in.

"Get in, at the double. Come on, move it, move it!" the other barked, gesturing through the airlock at a double column of seats that ran down the centre of the cabin. Towards the rear Paul noticed a large TV screen, a couple of terminals with omni-gloves hanging from cords, and what looked like a couple of card tables. He ignored them for now and headed up the column to pick his seat, choosing to sit in the third row.

Sana looked down at Paul and smiled. "This seat occu-?"

"Recruit, shut the hell up there!" yelled one of the drill sergeants, leaning in and glaring at Sana.

"Sorry, I-" Sana started, and was instantly silenced by another yell.

"I said shut the goddamn hell up! What's the matter, recruit, deaf or something? Just sit down and keep your fucking trap shut!" The drill sergeant glared at her as she quickly sat down, her face going a deep blue that Paul found rather appealing. Not that he dared comment.

"The rest of you dumb shits remember that!" the drill sergeant continued. "No speaking unless you have been given permission, that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir," Paul called out with the others, as they had been taught. The drill sergeant glared round for a couple of moments, then withdrew his head.

A few minutes later, the airlock's inner doors clicked shut and the sharp clack of boots on the metal floor announced that the drill sergeants were walking up the aisles, the one on the left rechecking all the recruits on his datapad. Reaching the end, he nodded, satisfied, and sat down in one of two seats against the facing bulkhead. A minute later the other drill sergeant seated himself in the other, turning slightly to press a button on a comm unit mounted on the bulkhead at about chest height.

"All aboard," he said into it, then turned back to face Paul and the others. "Buckle up, recruits," he snapped.

Paul reached for the belts hanging at the sides of his seat, pulling the twin buckles forward and across, noting they were in an x-pattern, with an extra belt to go across the waist. He cinched them tight across his torso and waist, glanced to his right at Sana and grinned when he saw her trying to adjust the belts' length to get the buckles to lie comfortably between her breasts. She caught his grin and made a surreptitious rude gesture at him, glancing nervously at the drill sergeants who, fortunately for her, did not notice.

The pilot's voice came over the intercom. "This is CLESF flight 22A, Earth Leicester to Alpha Centauri stellar-orbit station Fairban. The estimated duration of the flight will be thirty hours. We will spend approximately two hours at sub-light speeds until we attain a suitable distance from Earth's gravity well, twenty-four hours in FTL, and then another four hours at sub-light speeds until we dock at Fairban. Remain seated until we exit Earth's atmosphere; thereafter you will be free to move about the cabin. Once we are in free space, the drill sergeants will brief you on shipboard regulations. That's all for now. Please ensure you are buckled in; we are taking off in three."

A mild shudder ran through the _Tranquility_.

"Thrusters engaged," the pilot's voice said. "Prepare for launch in T minus 60 seconds."

The _Tranquility_ shuddered again, and Paul reflexively clutched at the armrests.

"T minus 40 seconds."

Back in Paul's own time, he'd always been nervous, afraid even, at take-off or landing. The feeling now, as they prepared to take off into space, was a thousand times worse. He swallowed with difficulty, gripping the armrests even tighter. A vague undefinable dread caused his forehead to break out in a fine sweat, vivid images of various catastrophes flickering before his eyes.

"T minus 20 seconds."

Sana's soft fingers touched the back of Paul's right hand, distracting him from his fantasies. He looked across at her with wide eyes.

"Nervous?" she mouthed, and he nodded. She blinked understandingly and gently prised his hand from the armrest, wrapping her fingers round his palm. A small ripple of gratitude ran through Paul at her sympathy, but was quickly quashed by the fear as the pilot spoke again.

"T minus five…four…three…two…one…launch."

The _Tranquility_ quivered much harder and Paul became aware of a sudden dropping sensation in his stomach, making him feel slightly queasy, something that was not helped by the _Tranquility_'s constant shaking. He gripped Sana's hand like a lifeline as his ears popped. Someone to the rear threw up noisily, and a couple of others swore violently.

"Exiting Earth's atmosphere in five…four…three…two…one," the pilot said, as the shuddering began to decrease. "Deactivating take-off thrusters and engaging artificial gravity."

The shuddering tailed off, stopping completely as the pilot stopped speaking. The bottom of Paul's stomach reattached itself, and he let out a relieved sigh. A faint cough alerted him to the fact that he was still clutching Sana's hand, and he let go quickly, flashing her a grateful smile.

"First time's always the worst," she murmured softly, "but you get used to it very fast."

"Thanks," he said, beginning to feel embarrassed of his fear. _Ridiculous,_ he thought, _to have been so afraid. Like a child. _He felt a faint prickling on his cheeks. _Great, now I'm blushing. Hell but this is embarrassing_.

"You may remove your seat belts now," the pilot said. "Remain seated until the drill sergeants have briefed you on shipboard regulations."

The two drill sergeants unbuckled and stood up, each stepping out into one of the aisles.

"Right, recruits," one began. "I am Drill Sergeant Holm, and that is Drill Sergeant Anders. On this voyage, you will listen to us and obey our rules. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" Paul and the rest called.

"Damn straight it is," Holm snapped. "Now listen up, rookies. There are five rules to remember. You break any, you will complete the journey standing in the airlock. You will also be disciplined when we reach Fairban. Rule number one, there must be no fighting at any time, regardless of motivation. Break this rule and you will be forced to desist."

Drill Sergeant Anders produced a two-foot long baton with a grip and disc-guard from behind his back, holding it up in the air.

"You see this?" he asked, taking over from Drill Sergeant Holm. "This," he went on, "is a shock baton." He pressed a button on the grip and the entire baton above the guard sparked. "It will deliver a shock of 50,000 volts with a current of fifty milliamps. Let me tell you this, it is extremely painful. We will not hesitate to use it to break up a fight. Is this understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" Paul and the rest called again.

Drill Sergeant Holm spoke again. "Rule number two, no sex." This brought a couple of smothered snorts and Paul found a small smile threatening to creep onto his face. Quickly he took a deep breath and forced his face to be impassive, escaping the withering glare that Drill Sergeant Holm swept the others with.

"You think that's funny, eh?" he snapped. "Think again. This is no joke. I don't even want to remember some of the things that we have had to break up on these trips. It is strictly forbidden. I don't mind telling you, you break that rule and we _will_ use the shock batons on you, _multiple_ times, regardless of your condition, and you _will_ be disciplined properly. Now," his glare swept the seats again, "anyone want to laugh?" He paused a second. "Didn't think so."

"Rule number three," Drill Sergeant Anders said, "no gambling. We provide some entertainment facilities to pass the time, but there must be no gambling on this voyage. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" came the expected chorus.

"Rule number four, you do not venture out of this cabin," Drill Sergeant Holm went on. "To the rear is the leisure quarter and the men's toilets, to the front the women's toilets and the crew's cabin. That last is strictly off-limits.

Rule number five, you will maintain at least polite behaviour amongst each other. Keep the profanity and hostility to a minimum. Are we clear on the rules?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Good. Enjoy the flight, because it's the last time you'll get to enjoy yourselves for a while," Drill Sergeant Anders said. "The person who threw up: clean yourself up and then clean the chairs you messed up. You'll find cleaning equipment in a cabinet in the toilet section."

The two drill sergeants moved away, heading for a small table and cushioned bench in a corner, as the sound of clicking buckles and retracting belts echoed round the cabin.

"Well," Paul said, as he released the buckles and stood up, "not the most restrictive of regulations, I must say."

Sana laughed. "Not that they've left much fun stuff, though," she replied, poking him in the ribs. "Rule two?"

Paul stared at her with raised eyebrows, making her laugh again.

"Joking."

As they moved to the entertainment facilities, Paul had to step around a puddle of rancid vomit in the centre of his aisle.

"Who threw up?" he asked innocently, and none too quietly. One of the others turned and made shushing gestures at him, to which he responded with a blank, "What? All I asked was who threw up…shite…" The last word was prompted by seeing a red-faced, angry Bonzo come striding towards him, cleaning device in hand, with an obviously wet shirtfront. He just managed to stop himself from flinching as Bonzo passed him, glaring viciously as he went.

Paul caught Sana's eye and mouthed "oops" at her, earning a slightly despairing eye-roll.

* * *

_**Thursday 14 June 2178, CRS Tranquility**_

"Got it!" Sana yelled, her voice lost in the cheers and whoops from the onlookers as she slapped her hand down on the empty space on the card table seconds before her opponent's hand came down on the same place.

"Damn, Sana," her opponent said, half laughing, "is that arm real or synthetic? Cause I've never seen someone faster on the strike than you are."

Sana grinned at the woman sitting on the other side of the card table. "Maybe it's just that you're abnormally slow, Marian," she quipped, high-fiving a supporter. Turning aside, she called, "Paul!"

"What?" Paul called back, not lifting his eyes from the terminal he was using.

"Want a game of Speed?" Sana asked.

Paul removed one of the gloves and rubbed his eyes. "Sorry, no," he replied, looking over at Sana and the small group round the card table.

She was sitting with the two women and the female turian, looking more relaxed in their company than he'd yet seen her with anyone..._anyone besides me, actually,_ he thought. Round the other table were Bonzo and his three friends, intent on some card game involving much swapping of cards interspersed with the occasional surreptitious glance at the drill sergeants at the other end of the cabin, while the remaining three men were playing a rather violent first-person slash-em-up on the massive screen.

"Why not?" she queried, looking vaguely hurt. _Well..._

"Busy," Paul answered, gesturing towards the terminal. _That's half the truth, anyway._

"Busy? With what?" the turian asked, quirking her mandibles in a way Paul remembered Garrus doing in-game when confused. "What's there to be busy with?"

"Stuffs," Paul said shortly, slipping the glove back on and half-turning back. "Sorry, just not in the mood, I guess."

Sana pouted but shrugged. "Your loss," she called, then turned back to the others.

Paul shuddered when he was certain she wasn't looking. While not averse to a card game, he was not sure he could play with four women looking on. Hell, he wasn't sure he could even _sit_ in a group with four women in it. Not that he'd dare say so, of course. Sana, though…_she's a different kettle of fish,_ Paul thought, as he scrolled down the page on OmniWiki he was currently reading. He hadn't lied to her — she really was the first female friend he'd had. Not because of anything wrong with his looks; one of his few — exactly four — friends told him once that his partner and her friends had rated Paul a rather high 8 out of 10, while rating him a solid 6. It was Paul's own personality that was the problem. He was too timid where it came to girls. Never very quick with words, Paul lost what little wit and repartee he possessed whenever girls had come within two metres of him. By the time he'd left school at eighteen, he had gained a reputation as a bit of a misanthrope who nevertheless was a nice enough bloke — if he'd just lighten up. His awkwardness around girls had developed into a sort of dour disregard, which put off those few who tried to gain a bit of prestige by getting the one straight guy who had never had a girlfriend. Of any kind. Not that he'd even noticed their attempts. He was usually flabbergasted whenever his friends told him about the girls afterwards. That any girl could fancy him, or even want to befriend him, was so completely bizarre and unfathomable a notion to Paul that it never failed to surprise him.

All of which made his friendship and successful rapport with Sana interesting and novel — _although slightly frightening, considering what she did,_ he thought. That friendship notwithstanding, he was not about to go and join a group like that any time soon. _Too many girls..._ In any case, he still had plenty to read about. He was halfway through an account of the First Contact War, and he still had to finish reading up on the various firearms, vehicles, ships, events and places he remembered from the game. With a shake of the head, Paul pushed all thoughts about friendships out of his head and focussed on his reading.

* * *

_**Friday 15 June, CRS Tranquility, Alpha Centauri system**_

"We are now in close orbit round Alpha Centauri. ETA stellar-orbit station Fairban thirty minutes. Resume your seats and buckle in."

The pilot's voice roused Paul from his semi-trance at the terminal. With a sigh he straightened up, slipping his hands from the gloves and rubbing his tired eyes. He tried to stand up and fell back with a groan at the protest from his stiff joints. A pair of small hands gripped his shoulders gently from behind, massaging them.

"Yeah," Sana said from above him, "you would be stiff after thirty hours at the terminal. Honestly, what were you reading that was so good?"

"Everything," Paul yawned, leaning back involuntarily into her. She leant forwards, her face next to his.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly.

He closed his eyes for a second, then stood up, turning to face her, her hands still on his shoulders. "I'm fine," he said, with a grin.

She raised an eyebrow. "Just how do you def-"

What she was saying was cut off by one of the drill sergeants' bellow.

"Back to your seats, recruits, didn't you hear the man? Anyone not sitting in one minute gets zapped!"

"Better move," Sana whispered to Paul, looking nervously over at the drill sergeants.

He turned to head up the aisle, but had only taken a couple of steps when something caught his foot and sent him sprawling.

"Oops," Bonzo's drawling voice hissed maliciously as he walked past, bringing his foot down with deliberate force on Paul's right hand, grinding it viciously with his booted heel into the hard floor. Paul bit his lips sharply, managing to keep silent with an effort. _Ah, motherfucker, _he snarled mentally.

"Asshole," Sana growled, helping Paul up. "Are your fingers alright?"

"Maybe, I think so," Paul replied, flexing them experimentally. There was a dull ache round a rapidly forming bruise in the centre of his palm, along with an odd, slightly numb feeling deeper down. _This feels familiar..._

"I want to see them when we sit down, okay?" she said, giving him a stern look.

"Uh huh" Paul replied. As he walked up to his seat he narrowly avoided Bonzo's hooking foot, ignoring the sneer and muttered insult that accompanied it. He sat down, pulling the belts out and buckling them up one-handed. A sharp flare of pain shot through his damaged hand from the inside out, and he winced. _Yep, familiar... _he thought, remembering a time he'd fallen and fractured his wrist. The pain had taken an almost identical pattern then as well.

"Here," Sana muttered, gently taking his hand and feeling it.

"Gently," Paul muttered. "I think it may be broken... ow!" He hissed through gritted teeth when she poked a certain part in the middle of his hand, sending another sharp jolt of pain lancing through it, this one longer-lived. The numbness had mostly gone already, being replaced by a slowly growing throbbing. A third stab of pain made him bite his lip hard to avoid moaning.

"That fucking asshole," Sana growled, "he's broken at least two of your metacarpals. The middle ones, I think. Feels like at least two breaks. You're going to have to see a medic about this."

"Well, shite," Paul groaned, cradling his injured hand with the other. Sana shook her head angrily and leant back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest, her expression brooding.

"Why didn't you tell the drill sergeants?" she asked suddenly. "Why _don't_ you?"

Paul blinked. _Good question..._ "I - I'm not sure..." he said slowly. "I guess... if I do, he's won. I've shown I'm weak and have to go running off for help, and he'll come back for more."

Sana's eyes narrowed. "That's bullshit and you know it," she retorted, unbuckling her seatbelt, "Just sit here and try not to move it."

"Where are you going?" Paul asked apprehensively.

"I'm gonna go warp his head clean of his shoulders," she growled. Paul's eyes widened in shock as she began to get to her feet, her biotics flaring blue round her clenched fists. _Holy shite no..._ his eyes flashed quickly to the drill sergeants at the front of the compartment - they were talking quietly, not looking their way - and back to Sana, now fully on her feet and turning into the aisle, raising her right hand. With seconds to spare before the asari fulfilled her threat - which Paul knew she would have no qualms about doing - he lunged across her now empty seat, grabbing at her with his left hand while trying to keep his damaged one out of the way. His fingers scrabbled helplessly over the fabric of her shirt, which was tucked into her trousers, then hooked into her waistband. Without sparing a moment to think about what he'd caught hold of, he yanked her back down into her seat, snatching a frantic glance at the - _thankfully -_still-occupied drill sergeants. As his eyes came back to his friend, he realised with a frisson of horror that from the way he'd pulled her and where he'd grabbed hold, she was now sitting squarely on his hand, with all that that entailed... the random thought flickered across his mind that his hand might almost have broken the sound barrier as he extricated it from beneath her. With not a little trepidation he met her gaze and felt himself shrinking involuntarily before the fury visible in her face. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, her upper lip was drawn back from her teeth, her nostrils were flared and her muscles were tensed - and, a small irrepressible corner of his mind whispered, she had never looked more attractive.

"S-sorry," he stammered, "I-I didn't mean to..."

Sana cut him off with a snort. "Forget that," she hissed, "why the hell are you stopping me? He needs to be punished for that!"

Paul breathed a mental prayer of relief that she wasn't angry about his unintended groping of her behind as he replied, trying to calm her down, "I know, but not you. I mean, you don't need to. You heard the drill sergeants, no fighting under any circumstances-"

"So why not tell them? In fact, let me-" Sana interrupted, starting to get to her feet again. Desperately Paul grabbed her arm and pulled her down again.

"No, please!" he whispered urgently, trying not to get the drill sergeants' attention. "Just - just leave it, please!"

"Why?" she shot back, her face inches away from his. "Why should I ignore that that bastard just broke your hand? Why are you just taking it?" She raised her hand as Paul started to answer, silencing him. "Guys like that, you know what they understand? Force, nothing else! You take it lying down like this, it won't go away. He'll just see it as weakness and keep coming back. Can't you see?" she hissed, gripping Paul's shoulder. "You can't just let this go!"

Paul grimaced helplessly, unwilling to agree. He knew that what she was saying was true, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything. _It'll just bring more trouble... if I tell the drill sergeants, then he'll get disciplined but then he'll have a bigger grudge... and if I let Sana deal with him, she'll get disciplined and he'll have even more of a grudge... and _- his mind flashed back to the canteen incident - _she's more than capable of doing serious damage... if she's this angry, she might go too far and then she'd really be for it..._

"Please, Sana," he tried again, "it's not worth it -"

"Not worth it?" she repeated incredulously. "Not worth it?" She took his damaged hand in both of hers, her grip surprisingly gentle and soft, given how angry she seemed, and cradled it between them. "_This_ is not worth it?"

"I know you're right, but... please, I can't - I - please, just let it go!" Paul pleaded, beginning to despair. Her eyes bored into his, and he held her gaze even though he was trembling with a mixture of fear, pain, and adrenaline. Finally she looked away.

"Fine," she said coldly, facing forwards and pulling her seatbelt on again. She crossed her arms, saying in a flat voice, "It's your choice."

He stared at her for a couple of moments, but she didn't look round. A throb of pain, worse than any before, drew his attention back to his hand and he bit his lip, hunching over it.

* * *

The station, displayed in full colour on the 20-inch screen at the front of the compartment, looked impressive. Paul wasn't sure just how big it was, having nothing to scale it against, but it was definitely huge. Strangely elegant as well, drifting serenely in space and shaped like a massive donut of several concentric rings with a large semi-conical structure in the middle attached to the rings by four thick struts. Written in massive red letters on the gleaming black of the outer ring were the words CLESF RAPTOR TRAINING STATION FAIRBAN. There were several transports docked to it, each becoming apparent as being several times larger than the _Tranquility_ as it closed in.

"Docking in ten…nine…eight…seven…six…" the pilot said over the comm, as the _Tranquility_ inched in right up to the station's side. An umbilical walkway extended out to meet them, touching the _Tranquility_'s side with an audible and tangible clunk just as the pilot said, "…zero."

"Docking achieved," the pilot went on. "Repressurising walkway and airlock…walkway secure. Remove your buckles and follow the drill sergeants' lead." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Thank you for flying CLESF Spacelines. This is the _Tranquility_, concluding CLESF flight 22A, Earth Leicester to Alpha Centauri stellar-orbit station Fairban."

"Right, recruits," Drill Sergeant Holm called, standing up, "single line this aisle, first row first." He indicated the aisle on Paul's side. "Prepare to follow Drill Sergeant Anders on his mark."

As the recruits stood and moved into the aisle, Paul caught Sana's eye. She glared at him coldly and then glanced away. He felt a sudden urge to cry.

A minute later, Drill Sergeant Anders slapped the airlock doors' haptic interface and they slid open.

"Follow me," he ordered, and led the way through.

As Paul stepped through behind him, he inadvertently cracked his right hand against the doorframe. The spike of pain that shot up his arm made him inhale sharply through clenched teeth, and Drill Sergeant Anders glanced round quickly. His eyes flicked to Paul's hand, which he was attempting to cradle unobtrusively, then up to his face. Paul tried not to show anything, quickly making his features impassive in a bid to hide the pain. After a couple of moments that seemed like an eternity, Drill Sergeant Anders looked away and carried on, leaving Paul to breathe a sigh of relief.

* * *

_**CLESF RAPTOR Training Station Fairban, Alpha Centauri system**_

The pain was getting worse. Paul sat, hunched over, on one of the steel benches that ran the length of the otherwise bare reception room they were in. There were only two doors, one at each end, with a uniformed guard at each door. Shock batons were prominently dangling from their hips. Paul wasn't sure exactly what they were supposed to be guarding or why, but he was in no state to give it much thought. His hand hurt too much.

Sana was sitting next to him, but there was a very pointed gap of three inches between them. He assumed she was still angry with him for not telling anyone.

"Alleyn!" Paul glanced up to see a man standing in the far door. A white stripe on each upper arm marked him as a medic, while the double red chevrons superimposed on them showed his seniority.

"Here," Paul called, raising his left hand.

"Come with me," the medic ordered, turning away. Paul tried to meet Sana's eyes as he stood, and felt slightly heartened when she gave him a look that, while still cold, hinted at worry. The medic led him down a long corridor, up two flights of stairs and into a typical medbay. "Sit," he said, pointing to a chair beside what looked like a glass-topped table. "Put your hand on the table," he added, moving over to a terminal at one side as Paul sat down.

"So," the medic said, tapping at the terminal, "you've broken your second and third metacarpals. Simple fractures, but with extensive bruising round the site. Care to tell me how?"

Paul hesitated.

"I tripped," he said eventually.

"Uh huh," the medic said, still intent on the terminal. Paul could see an image of the bones in his hand displayed on it, probably from the table he was resting it on. "Want to tell me more?"

Paul kept silent.

"Look," the medic said, turning and facing him, "you can't get an injury like this just from tripping and hitting your hand. Tell me what happened?" He waited for a minute, watching Paul inquiringly. When Paul didn't answer, he sighed. "Fine then." He turned back to the terminal, tapping out a quick command. A screen opposite Paul came to life, showing camera footage of the inside of the _Tranquility._ Paul saw himself start to move towards the seats, only to be tripped by Bonzo. The view changed, now showing a waist-high camera that zoomed in on Bonzo and Paul, giving a perfect view of Bonzo treading on Paul's hand and grinding it into the floor. The medic paused the clip at the moment Bonzo shifted his weight onto his heel, twisting it down.

"Well?" the medic said. Paul bit his lip but said nothing. "Stubborn one, aren't you?" the medic commented. "Fine then." He opened a cabinet and removed a few things, stepping over to Paul. "I don't think it's loyalty keeping you quiet, though. Correct me if I'm wrong?" Paul didn't respond, and the medic shook his head, starting to deal with his hand. "I'll take it that I'm right. Let me guess. You're afraid." Paul glared at him, then yelped with pain as the medic shifted the broken bones, setting them right. "This should numb the pain," the medic added as an aside, applying medigel. "Yes, you are," he went on. "Of Bonzo Medina and his pals, and of being disgraced if you told me what happened. You're worried that it might be a sign of weakness." He started to bandage Paul's hand tightly. "But it's not. It may not be the most conducive thing to harmony with them, but it's not weak. In fact, keeping your mouth shut is weak. You're letting them intimidate you into silence." He tied off the bandage, chuckling at the glare on Paul's face. "It's true. Now," he walked over to the door and opened it, "follow me back to the reception room."

The room had filled up considerably when Paul re-entered. It looked to him as if about three other shuttle loads of recruits had arrived, and the room was filled with a low hum as they conversed in whispers. _Seems they get all the new recruits at the same time,_ he thought. He began to make his way to where Sana was sitting alone, glancing round as he went. In one corner he noticed Bonzo's three friends, who were glaring daggers at him, but oddly Bonzo himself wasn't there.

Sana gave him a smile as he approached, and he smiled back, relieved that she no longer seemed angry with him.

"Medina's gone," she whispered, as he sat down beside. "He got called out five minutes after you by a couple of officers, looked like maybe lieutenants or something. You told the medic, right?"

"Uh, I didn't have to," Paul replied, deciding not to mention the medic's lecture. "He already knew — showed me camera footage. What d'you — " He was cut off by the door opening again. A drill sergeant entered the room, with two more troopers.

"Alright, recruits," he barked, "enough lolling around, get up. Time for you lot to get your introduction to CLESF. Follow me!"

* * *

**So, like I said, people, REVIEW! Or I will come after you with a big gun.**

**Thanks to 1054SS325MP for his help with Sana in this chapter. :)**


	4. Relaxation?

**Welp, chapter. Unexpected, I know. Sorry for the delay, but uni stuff takes up a lot of my time. Anyway, here we go. Training is done, Paul's back on Earth for some well-earned rest before he gets assigned to a squad.  
Thanks to Realdeadmeat, Nanobot5770 and FtDLulz for reviewing. And Guest, whoever you are :)  
A thousand thanks to my beta, 1054SS325MP, for being such a great guy and giving so much help.  
I seem to have lost my other beta, though.  
****Well, moving on, enjoy the chapter!**  


* * *

_**Saturday 15 December 2181, CLESF (Earth) Depot, Leicester**_

Paul looked at himself in the mirror, smiling appreciatively at his reflection. The CLESF casual uniform suited him down to the ground — black jacket buttoned over a black t-shirt, black trousers, and the RAPTOR insignia vertically down each shoulder in red. _I absolutely love CLESF's colour scheme, _he thought, not for the first time. Slowly he turned his body into profile, nodding slightly. It fit well, but not too well — after the ridiculously intensive training, even with the extensive genetic muscle enhancements, he looked almost scrawny. Not an ounce of excess fat on him — but at the same time, he hadn't yet built up much muscle bulk. Not that he lacked for strength.

He smiled again, looking forward to being able to relax fully for the first time — the shuttle back from Fairban didn't count — in six months. Six long, gruelling, painful months. From the word go, he and the other recruits, all two hundred and eleven of the initial draft, from all across the Systems Alliance, had been kept on the hop. Physical training, mental training, marksmanship - they were trained at first with weapons lacking even the most minor computer-assists, forcing them to rely on eye-hand co-ordination and accumulative skill alone - close combat, weapon maintenance, armour maintenance...the list went on and on. Interspersed with this were the frequent medical visits, where they received their genetic modifications and bionic enhancements. As if they didn't have enough to do with all that, they had to maintain a level of smartness and cleanliness that Paul had not thought possible except maybe in some of the most unrealistic advertisements 'back in the world', as he thought of his home universe.

And it was mind-numbingly boring. Sure, there were moments, such as his first time in helmet drill: into a glass-fronted room, airtight, helmet stowed away in his armour. Combat exercise begins, rounds - perfectly real, and at least excessively painful if not strictly lethal - zipping past, targets flickering back and forth, and then: "Helmet on!" and he had eight seconds to extract and don helmet before gas flooded the room - or they vented it, it was random. Managing to seal it a third of a second before the time goes, then: "Remove helmet and recite RAPTOR creed!" and realising that it was a gas, and removing the helmet at the double, because the drill sergeants were a hell of a lot scarier than breathing sarin, even, and saying the creed, the words spilling from his mouth in a just-intelligible stream: "I am a RAPTOR operative. I am the deadliest warrior in the galaxy. My life and loyalty is to the Commonwealth first, CLESF second, and my squad third. I know no fear nor delay in executing my orders, though they forfeit my life. The mission is paramount; I will not endanger, nor cause to be endangered in any way, the success of the mission. My weapon is a part of my body; I will care for it as I do myself." Then back on with the helmet, the gas nearly wiping him out, but forcing himself not to throw up in the helmet as he finished the exercise and staggered out of the room...now that had been a moment to remember. Less so the second time, even less the third time, and by the fiftieth time he was daydreaming as he recited the creed, slowly, intonation and delivery perfect, then completing the combat exercise afterwards with a perfect score in record time. Everything, no matter how exciting, terrifying, dangerous, or just plain insane eventually becomes boring after, say, the thirtieth repetition. And everything was repeated a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times.

He'd thrived on the repetition. It was how he'd become the highest-rated RAPTOR graduate in his draft, and one of the highest-rated ever in the history of the RAPTOR program.

It was also how he always had been, 'back in the world' when he was at school, or fencing...at the top of his classes because he'd spent every weekday afternoon and evening, until seven o'clock, repeating and repeating the work to get it perfect; fencing sabre on the national level by his sixteenth birthday; a world-class gamer: one of the most influential players on Eve Online, one of the most feared Age of Empires Online commanders...a perfectionist in whatever he did.

Geek.

He chuckled a little, at the memories. Geek? Well, yes, still - it's not something you can kill, or grow out of being - but did he look like one? Did he act like one? Hell, no. Well, he didn't act like one most of the time.

Glancing across at a clock on the wall, he noted the time — 10:21 pm — and bit his lip, thinking a moment. Leave officially began at nine pm, when the newly-minted RAPTOR troopers could leave the camp; the others should be long gone, leaving him to make the journey to wherever alone.

Just how he liked it.

He turned and left the room, heading down the drab steel-grey corridor to the main courtyard, where the aircars waited. For, CLESF gave all troopers who had just completed their training twelve hours Earthside leave, with the option of either going on a group trip to, say, London's seamier side, or to have use of an unmarked but tagged CLESF aircar to go wherever they wanted. While he'd never been popular amongst the others — he had been far too withdrawn, far too focussed on the training, to the point of fanaticism, almost — Paul knew that despite that, or perhaps because of it, the other RAPTOR graduates would insist on his accompanying them to London for a night of 'fun'. _Unfortunately their idea of fun is getting totally shitfaced, _Paul thought wryly, as he touched the iPhone in his inner pocket. _And I got stuff to do, places I want to go. No time for getting drunk. I leave it this long, the guys will all be off partying already. I get to do my own thing. _He stepped swiftly down a staircase, his boots clacking off the metal stairs. _Just a pity Sana's probably gone off with her girlfriends…_

"Paul!"

_...or not._

"Hey, Sana!" Paul called, smiling at the asari lounging in a chair beside the doors to the courtyard, pointedly ignoring the two guards eyeing her.

"What took you so long?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and standing up as he came over.

"Uh, I was deliberately taking my time," Paul replied apologetically. "Were you waiting for me?"

Sana rolled her eyes. "No, I was waiting for the tooth fairy. Of course I was waiting for you."

"Okaaay," Paul murmured, and winced as Sana slapped him lightly upside the head.

"Come on," she said, "we need to have some time to hang out together, you and me. 'Cause you didn't all the six months we were up there, you were too busy practicing even in your off-time-"

"So were you," Paul interrupted. Sana snorted and shrugged as they walked into the courtyard.

"Even so," she went on, "then on the shuttle back you still didn't. So we're going to hang out tonight, you hear?"

"As you wish, ma'am" Paul answered, with a show of timidity that made Sana laugh. "I, uh, I have got something I want to do though, if that's alright…"

"As long as it's just something small," Sana said, taking an aircar keycardfrom the duty officer. "I have the whole night planned out…"

_Oh dear,_ Paul thought. _Please no excessive drinking, please…_

* * *

_**Sunday 16 December 2181, Hyde Park, London**_

_Well, this isn't so bad…_

Paul put his empty can next to the one already on the floor and leant back on the bench with a sigh, his hands clasped behind his head. Sana grinned at him and took a swig from her can, leaning back as well, looking out across the Serpentine.

"Nice view at this time of night…" she murmured.

"Bonus points for no rain," Paul commented. He tilted his head, turning slightly to the right and looking at her. For about the twentieth time that night he admired her finely-formed features, the delicate but firm jaw, the high cheekbones, the pale cerulean skin, lightly flecked with the white freckles, the distinctive crescents over each temple, the intense blue eyes… _wait a minute—_

He blinked, realising that she was looking straight back at him, an amused smile twitching the corners of her lips. _Oops…_

"What are you looking at?" she murmured, half-closing her eyes and leaning slightly into him. Flustered and not a little nervous about her actions, Paul quickly looked away, mumbling quietly, "Nothing, nothing…" He could feel his cheeks burning and resolutely kept his face turned away so she wouldn't see it — even though it was dark enough in the pale moonlight that she probably wouldn't notice.

"Okay then," Sana whispered, a slightly sad look crossing her face momentarily. Still looking in the opposite direction, Paul didn't notice.

An awkward silence stretched for a couple of moments, while Paul racked his brains for something to say. Finally, he latched onto something that would probably get a proper conversation started, as well as being something he was genuinely interested in.

"So, biotics sergeant, eh?" he said. "What was training for that like?"

"Hard," Sana said, shuddering.

"That goes without saying," Paul remarked, thinking back over his own training.

"I guess…" she murmured, then drained her can and put it on the floor. "You know how we had all those exercises?"

"Hard to forget," Paul snorted, and she smiled.

"Anyway," she went on, "us biotics had to do the same amount but with our abilities. At first it was basic, easy stuff. You know, lifting things, pushing them, pulling them, that sort of thing. Wasn't just for strength though, they had us develop our precision and finesse as well. I heard rumours that one of the trainers could thread a needle with her biotics, but as I never saw it happen, I'm pretty sure it's just a myth. After a while, they started testing us with the various techniques…warp, throw, reave, stasis, all of them." She gave a self-satisfied smirk. "I showed 'promise' with all of them, apparently. They shifted me into the Biotic Sergeant MOS, me and ten others, at first. Seven of them were asari," she said, glancing at him. "You humans don't seem to have that much biotic potential."

"Well, it's a combination of rarity of eezo exposure and infancy of implant technology," Paul replied. "The main type of implant, the L3, doesn't confer that much biotic strength. It's predecessor, the L2, can, but it's pretty temperamental. Some users have biotic potential equivalent to an asari," — _like Kaiden_, he added mentally — "while others don't. Despite the potential, L2 implants were discontinued because of other problems, such as potential brain damage with constant use. Most L2 users who have good potential have extremely bad migraines—" Paul stopped abruptly, as Sana placed two slender fingers against his lips.

"Quiet, you," she said, amusement evident in her tone. "What are you, a walking encyclopaedia or something?"

"Sorry," Paul said, as Sana took her fingers away. "It's a habit of mine. Carry on."

"Anyway," she continued, "what they put us through was truly insane. We were almost constantly training, one technique then another, different combinations, increasing the targets' numbers, giving us more targets…by the end, at one point I had to take down twenty-five targets in three minutes, in an urban enviro-sim — you know those?"

"Intimately," Paul muttered, nodding.

"So in that, with live fire, civilian shields, the whole shebang. Absolute worst-case scenario. I mean, the targets were a mix of turian and human assault troops, with two asari commandoes, a krogan, and two mechs. The only weapon they allowed me was a Carnifex."

"Ouch."

"Exactly."

She paused for a moment, staring off into the middle distance as if reliving the memory. Paul had a sneaking suspicion that she was actually drawing it out deliberately, waiting for him to ask her what happened. So he did.

"And?" he prompted.

"I did it in two minutes, seven seconds," she said, smugly. "Apparently I broke a record."

"Two minutes, seven seconds?" Paul repeated. "_Damn._ That's…"

"Amazing? Unbelievable? Awesome?" Sana suggested, smirking broadly.

"Twelve seconds longer than I took in a similar situation, actually."

She stared at him.

"What."

He smirked back.

"Similar situation, live fire and civilian shields in an urban enviro-sim, thirty opponents, including two krogan and four mechs. I did have more firearms — they gave me a Katana, an Avenger and a Predator, plus a few grenades, but it took me one minute fifty-five seconds. Also broke a record."

"Show-off," she pouted, punching him in the shoulder.

"Listen to the pot calling the kettle black," he laughed, dodging another.

"Whatever," Sana said, a smile curving her lips. "I'll bet your training was pretty gruelling as well, Weapons Sergeant Alleyn?" she asked, drawing his rank out in a way that sent tingles all through him, especially his — _no, _he thought firmly. _Bad thoughts. Bad._

"Yeah, it was," he answered. "Rather like yours, actually. Lot of training on all the different weapons CLESF uses, and a whole lot more they don't. I can score a bulls-eye at maximum range, strip down and rebuild, repair, and modify just about every single weapon in mass production today. I know all their names, their makers, the various models…everything. Did you know there are twenty-seven different makes of shotgun in common military use, galaxy-wide? I can list them, if you want."

Sana laughed, showing brilliant white teeth. "I'll pass," she said, shaking her head. "That must have been _boring. _How did you manage?"

"Well…" he said, then stopped, blinking a moment. _Never really wondered that. _"I guess it's just something I do," he shrugged.

"So you just trained on guns?" Sana questioned, with a raised eyebrow.

"No," he replied. "Hardly. RAPTOR Weapons Sergeants don't just have proficiency with practically every weapon in use, they also need to be at least competent in each of RAPTOR's functions. Recon, assault, suppression, infil, the whole set. We're the snipers of the squad, we're the guys who pack the Revenants, we can sneak with the best, we can clear a room faster than most. If RAPTOR troopers are the CLESF élite, we're the élite of the RAPTOR squads."

"Is there anything you can't do?" Sana asked, playful sarcasm evident in her tone.

"Yeah, actually," Paul answered. "Pretty much everything that doesn't involve guns. Comms, demolitions, tech stuff, mechanics, recon, you know. The other specialties. I'm just the squad gun expert." He chuckled. "I was told that while I have strong leadership instincts, I'm not leader material. I want to lead, but I'm not actually fit to lead." He chuckled again. "You remember those exercises we did? The 'leaderless' ones?"

"Where we had to thrash it out amongst ourselves?" Sana queried, and Paul nodded.

"Yeah, those. Anyway, first few times I did them I managed to get in charge — and then fucked it all up. I'm too obsessive, I can't delegate. I'd be the only one to do the important things, I wouldn't let anyone have any initiative. When we were doing the small group exercises, with three of us, it was fine. Didn't do too bad. When there were more and I needed to delegate…that's when it fell apart. Our squad was slow, because I couldn't be sure things were done properly unless I did them, so I only ordered my troops to do the most basic things. Got thrashed every time. Eventually I realised that — had a 'little chat' with one of the lieutenants—" ("Ouch," Sana murmured) "—yeah, _ouch_, and then I forced myself to let others lead. And that turned out fine. See, I can follow orders—"

Sana burst out laughing at that, and Paul snorted a tad sheepishly. "Follow orders?" Sana gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "I would hope you could!"

"Okay, okay already," Paul protested. "You know what I meant. I found that once I stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing and just fulfilled my orders, I was fine. Better than fine, actually, because the guys who ended up being the accepted leaders learnt to give me quite a bit of initiative when they ordered me to do stuff. They'd give me a set of targets to accomplish, and that'd be it. I could reach those targets pretty much any way I wanted. Suited me fine."

"I'll bet," Sana murmured. She stared out across the park for a moment, then suddenly shifted her position so that she was leaning against his shoulder, stretching her legs out along the bench. The unexpected and quick motion startled him and he tensed instinctively, his nervousness returning. Apparently Sana felt his muscles clench, because she tilted her head back and said, looking up into his face, "Paul. It's alright. I just want to get a bit comfortable, that's all."

He mumbled something incoherent and looked away, resolutely controlling the impulse he was feeling to put his arm round her and draw her closer, against his chest. _But it would make her more comfortable,_ a voice in his mind said, and he glared mentally at it. _No, _he thought. _She's just a friend. It wouldn't be appropriate._

"Hey, Paul? Can you put on some music? Some of that, what did you call it? _epic_ music, please?" Sana asked, wriggling her back against his arm and her head against his shoulder.

"Uh, s-sure," Paul said, stammering slightly. _Thank god it's dark. I bet my face is redder than a ripe tomato right now. And about as hot as a grill. _He fumbled a bit with his omnitool, trying to access it without disturbing Sana. It wasn't easy, but he managed to put on some Two Steps From Hell in the end.

For a while they just sat there, listening to the music.

Eventually, Sana shifted, turning her head to look up at him. "Paul?" she said, softly.

"Yeah?" he replied, nervously.

"I…I want to tell you something," she started, shifting again so she was sitting properly by his side, pressed close up against him. She opened her mouth to continue, but a sudden shout broke the moment.

"Yo! Fuckin' lovebirds!"

Paul looked up sharply to see a group of evidently drunken youths in ripped jeans and spiked leather jackets staggering towards them. One of them, probably the leader given how the others flanked him, took a swig from a what looked like a bottle of vodka before pointing a finger at them, using the hand holding the bottle.

"You…so'jers?" he said loudly, his voice slurred by drink. "We don'…we don' like so'jers," he went on. "We gonna fuck you up, fuckin' so'jers." He was seconded by vacant cheers from the others, waving fists and bottles in the air.

"Look, guys," Paul said, his voice firm. "Go away, leave us alone. You don't want any trouble."

"Don' wan' trouble?" the leader repeated, slightly unfocussed eyes widening. "Don' wan' trouble! You da ones don' wan' trouble! We-"

Sana cut him off sharply. "Listen, pisshead," she snapped, straightening up and scooting away from Paul, "we don't want you and your noise here. Get lost. Now."

The youth laughed, throwing his head back and showing uneven, yellowing teeth. He drained the bottle and smashed it against his boot, holding it by the neck. He waved the sharp glass menacingly.

"Get lost, she sez," he sniggered, his cronies laughing with him. "Lissen, bitch. Dis's what we gonna do. We gonna fuck up your boyfriend there, smash him up real good. Then we gonna fuck you, ya hear? We gonna do you real good, then we gonna off you both. You'd like dat, wouldn't ya, asari bitch? How's about it, boys," he added, turning to his followers. "You boys want yerselves a piece of asari arse? Pound that blue pussy, yeah?" he went on, to loud whoops and cheers from the others. "How's dat sound, bitch?" he asked, turning back to Sana.

Sana laughed mockingly. "You think you scare us? I'm giving you one last chance, you drunken asshole. Get. The fuck. Away. Or else."

"Get the fuck away," the youth mimicked. He raised the shattered bottle, his cronies pulling out switchblades from inner pockets. "How 'bout we do this, huh, asari bitch?"

They began to advance menacingly, and Paul shook his head. Activating his omniblade he started to stand, only to halt as a firm hand gripped his arm. Glancing to his right, he saw Sana looking at him, a predatory smile on her face.

"Sit down," she murmured. "I'll take care of these morons."

"Uh, alright," Paul replied, sitting back down. "Don't hurt them too much, okay?" he added, feeling some trepidation as Sana stood smoothly, flexing her fingers.

"So, boys," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "You want to play, huh?" She clenched her fists and biotic energy flickered into life across her body, blue lightning dancing across her face and down her arms.

"Get her, boys," the youth yelled, and they charged at her, whooping raucously.

What followed was short, sharp, and painful. Sana effortlessly took down the drink-sodden youths, first slamming them down with a wide-angle push, then going through them individually, beating them up one by one. She grew progressively more and more brutal with each one, muttering at them under her breath, until Paul — who had been shifting uncomfortably in his seat the whole time — was forced to speak up.

"Hey, uh, Sana?" he said hesitantly, "don't you think that's enough?" She ignored him, proceeding to subject the next youth to such a pounding from her biotics that he resembled a meat steak after being through a tenderiser. "Sana? Sana, calm down, dammit!"

"What?" she asked, her voice so cold and hard it sent chills down his spine. _I've never, ever heard her speak like that. Not even when Madrid broke my hand._

"Sana, you're going overboard," he answered forcefully. "They didn't need that. The push would have done, you know that!"

"So?" she retorted. "They're punks. They deserve it. You heard what they were going to do to us. To _you_. They were going to _kill_ you." She punctuated the last sentence by biotically punching another youth in the face so hard blood spattered across the ground and Paul heard the distinctive, unforgettable sound of bones breaking.

"Sana!" he shouted, shocked, as he stood up and stepped closer to her. "Remember who we are. They wouldn't even have been able to touch us. You're over-reacting, like a child! Calm down and pull it together, girl!" He reached out and took her upper arm gently, only to be hurled back into the bench by a burst of biotics and a fast-moving palm, the wood shattering beneath him.

"Don't call me a child!" Sana practically screamed at him, her biotics flaring brighter than he'd ever seen before and her face twisting in indescribable emotion. "Don't _ever_ call me a child!" She whirled round and yanked the leader of the gang into the air with her biotics. Shimmering blue energy wreathed his body and he began to jerk and writhe as his limbs began stretching in opposite directions.

Pushing himself painfully back to his feet, Paul recognised the signs of an impending Reave. _Holy shit…_

"Sana, no!" he yelled, hurling himself at her in a full-body tackle that slammed them both to the ground, the youth falling back behind them as Sana's concentration was shattered.

With an inarticulate scream of rage Sana whirled on Paul, flipping them over so that she was on top. Gripping him tightly with one hand, biotics almost choking him, she raised the other hand in the air, dark energy glowing in an incandescent ball round her fist as she prepared to smash him out of existence. Her eyes were glazed, unfocussed, her lips drawn tight back in a rictus of anger over her clenched teeth.

"Sana," Paul gurgled, clawing at her relentless grip on his throat, "Sana, what are you doing? It's me, Paul!"

"P-paul?" she repeated, her eyes losing their unfocussed look. Her face went from anger to confusion to shock as she realised that she was about to brain her friend. Her lip began to tremble as her biotics flickered out, and she stood up slowly, shaking. "Oh, Goddess," she breathed, as she saw what she'd done to the gang of drunken youths. "Oh, Goddess," she repeated, sinking down on the ground, her face falling into her hands as she began to sob uncontrollably.

* * *

**Well, I guess the moral is not to threaten Sana's friends.  
People may have been expecting a chapter on training, but according to 1054SS325MP, real training is mostly boring. Which I tried to bring across in his brief flashback. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and remember - REVIEW! Come on guys, there have to be more than just five people reading this. Review. Morgaur-Lan-Melkor out. Peace!**


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